CRILS London Workshop

16-17th April 2024

Panel briefing notes coming soon.

  • Corporate Control

    What does industrialisation mean? How is industrialisation understood by and experienced by the public? What is the status and thus future of smallholder farmer in industrialised systems? Panellists shared evidence and analytical methods for researching corporate concentration.

  • Food Regimes and Sovereignty

    How are authoritarian states and corporations’ expansion intertwined? Does industrialisation encroach on sovereignty, indigeneity, and collective rights? Panellists discussed the socio-ecological, gendered and class impacts of the expansion of industrial animal agriculture projects and highlighted their colonial legacies.

  • The Future of Disease - Biosecurity, pandemics, AMR, and zoonoses

    How do responses to disease threats shape production systems and narratives? Does biosecurity affect labour and human-animal relations? How does biosecurity influence relations between countries and/or regions? Panellists discussed the contested contentious nature of biosecurity measures and the impacts to small and marginal farmers.

  • Human-Animal Narratives: Current and Future

    If we interrogate foundations of how we think about, research and represent industrial animal agriculture, what changes? This session drew on ecolinguistics, artistic practice, narratives and story-telling to dig deeper into multi-species relationships and ethics of care.

Public Lecture: Industrial Animal Agriculture in the Polycrisis Era

With Alex Blanchette and Christina Hicks

If poorly governed, industrial livestock systems (including aquaculture) exert unsustainable pressures on communities and the environment. What role does industrial animal agriculture play in this era of multiple crises, including rapidly accelerating climate change and biodiversity loss, deteriorating public health, rising rates of forced and undignified labour and political instability and militarisation?

You can watch the recordings below.

Alex Blanchette is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Tufts University, and a visiting faculty fellow in the Animal Law and Public Policy Program at Harvard Law School. He is the author of Porkopolis: American Animality, Standardized Life, and the Factory Farm.

Christina Hicks is a Professor of Environmental Social Sciences in the Political Ecology Group at Lancaster University’s Environment Centre, where she focusses on ocean governance and human-nature connections.