Human-Animal Studies Hub
Since 2019, I am the Convenor of the Human-Animal Studies Hub, and the Principal Investigator of a project that aims at building and fostering Human-Animal Studies in Portugal. This project won the 2019-2020 HAS International Development Program Award, of the Animal & Society Institute; and the ERICS prize – Stimuli and Recognition of Internationalization in Social Sciences from the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon, 2020 Edition.
The HAS Hub aims at being a horizontal, flexible and interdisciplinary think tank, where the relationships between human and non-human animals, as well as their social and ethical implications, are addressed in a free and critical way. It aspires to innovate in the ways of thinking about the relationships between the human and the non-human, drawing on interdisciplinary dialogue, and bring them into the Portuguese scientific agenda. Such a mission develops around three main axes: scientific research; education and training; and publication, dissemination and outreach.
Based at the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon, the Hub gathers scholars from several national and international higher education institutions, and from different disciplinary backgrounds: social sciences and humanities (Sociology, Anthropology, History, Philosophy, Law, Social Psychology, etc.), Veterinary, Biology, among others. It also partners up with several stakeholders from the civil society, including associations for the protection and conservation of animal life.
It is led by a vision of contributing to the construction of a “more-than-human” paradigm of thought and action, in which interspecies relations may be addressed as a continuum, considering all living beings as bearers of equivalent rights, to be respected, and thus committing to diminish their suffering. Non-human animals are considered actors in full right, active and decisive in the co-production of the hybrid communities inhabited by both humans and non-humans.
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