Since the beginning of my academic career, I was responsible for several courses on Social Sciences Research Methodologies. Although Research Methodologies will always be at the core of what I teach, and keep a special place in my heart, in the last few years I have changed gears in order to increase my teaching focus on my current scientific interests in the field of Human-Animal Studies.
Current teaching
Post-Graduate Course Animals and Society
As the first post-graduate course in Human-Animal Studies in Portugal, this course intends to offer the fundamental concepts and knowledge of the emergent interdisciplinary field of Human-Animal Studies. The course is taught in Portuguese, to Portuguese-speaking students from different countries, around the world. It also aims at being a differentiated academic offer in the Portuguese Higher Education landscape, by offering an approach to human-animal relations, distinct from other offers in its focus on the social and human sciences.
First edition, 2020/2021
With a 75h load, of 25 lectures of 3 hours each, the course runs every two years (on even years). The first edition took place in the first term of the academic year of 2020/2021, from 17th September to 17th December 2020. It provides students 30 ECTS (European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System). The lectures are mostly focused on social sciences and humanities, with major contributions from the growing interdisciplinary field of HAS. A proportion of lectures is distributed by other three faculties of the University of Lisbon: Medicine, Veterinary Sciences, and Law.
In its first edition, in 2020, due to Covid-19, the course was entirely taught online.
Besides coordinating the course, I teach four different units: introduction to HAS; theories and concepts; animals in disasters; and animals in the media.
Second edition, 2022/2023
Our second edition took place in the winter term of 2022, running from 20th September 2022 until 30th January 2023. We kicked off with an open lecture from Professor Maria Esther Maciel, about literature and animal subjectivity. The course expanded its offer in critical animal approaches, spanning from climate crisis, conservation, political attitudes, animal activism, or death and mourning. All lectures took place online, on Zoom. In the end of the second term, we organised a public seminar where the students were able to share with the academic and non-academic community their final essays.
Besides coordinating the course, in this edition my lectures covered the following topics: introduction to HAS; critical concepts and theories in HAS; multispecies methodologies; children and animals; families and companion animals; animals in catastrophes; rituals and practices of death and mourning for animals.
International Summer School in Human-Animal Studies
The HAS-Hub International Summer School is one of my dearest projects, which I co-organise with my dear friend and colleague David Redmalm. The school is a co-organisation between ICS – Instituto de Ciências Sociais da Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal, and Mälardalen University, Sweden. It takes place every two years, under the central coordination of one of the organising institutions. The first edition took place in Lisbon, in 2019. The 2021 edition is led by Mälardalen University, and takes place in Vasteras, Sweden (via Zoom, due to the Covid-19 pandemics).
How it all began…
I first met David Redmalm and Nora Schuurman in 2017, at the European Sociological Association Congress, in Athens. I remember browsing the programme looking for “animals” as keywords in titles or abstracts, and Nora and David’s, on pet grief, was one of the very few. We had lunch together and not very long after that I RESUMED CONTACT, with this pilgrim idea of putting our efforts together to create an International Summer School in Human-Animal Studies. This is how it all began. In 2019 we set off with a first (in-presence) edition, in Lisbon. In 2021, as everyone else, we adapted ourselves to the winds of pandemic change, with an online second edition.
First edition, 3-6 June 2019
Our first edition took place in 2019, at ICS – Instituto de Ciências Sociais da Universidade de Lisboa, in Portugal. We explored the topic of the ambiguous status of companion animals in modern society, and the many-fold interplays of their joint lives with humans. Students came from the USA, Greenland, Japan, France, Portugal, to discuss the role of companion animals in late modernity. Margo de Mello was the Guest Lecturer. And we visited the dogs at the Lisbon municipal kennel, Casa dos Animais; and the wolves in Mafra, at Grupo Lobo, the Centre for the Conservation of the Iberian Wolf, a partner of the HAS-Hub.
Besides being part of the coordination team, I taught two modules, on theory and methods in HAS.
Second edition, 16-20 August 2021
In our second edition, we explore how other animals share with humans a fundamental condition of finitude, which is accentuated in times of pandemic zoonosis and ecological crisis. We ask how can theoretical and methodological tools within human-animal studies be used to increase our attentiveness to this more-than-human-life? And how can human-animal studies scholars better commit to this life that we share with other animals, through their work?
This second edition is organized by Malärden University, Västeras, Sweden, and takes place between 20th and 24th June 2021.
Besides being part of the coordination team, I teach a unit on Animals and Disasters.
Other teaching experiences
Sociologia da Convivência Multiespécies [Sociology of Multispecies Conviviality]. Faculty of Law, University of Lisbon. Single lecture, by invitation, in 2021
Qualitative methods: focus group & individual interviews. Invited Lecturer. PhD in Development Studies – ICS, ISEG, ISA.
Single lecture, by invitation, 2018-2022
Quantitative Research Methods. PhD in Sociology – OPENSOC. Co-coordinator and Lecturer.
Course / 2018-2020
Animals in society : the social construction of human-animal relations [Animais e sociedade: a construção social das relações entre animais humanos e não humanos]. Faculty of Law, University of Lisbon. Single lecture, by invitation, in 2019
Qualitative methods: focus group & individual interviews. Invited Lecturer. PhD in Development Studies – ICS, ISEG, ISA.
Single lecture, by invitation, since 2018
Quantitative Research Methods. PhD in Sociology – OPENSOC. Co-coordinator and Lecturer.
Course / Discipline taught since 2018
Facebook and Personal Life. Guest lecturer in seminar of Sociology at OPENSOC – PhD in Sociology
Single lecture, by invitation, in 2017
Qualitative Research Methods and Techniques. PhD in Sociology – OPENSOC. Invited Lecturer . Title of session: Uses of Individual Interviews.
Single lecture, by invitation, in 2017
Audience Ethnography. Universidade Europeia. Single lecture, , by invitation, in 2016
Theories of Communication. BA Media and Communication. Invited Professor. University of Saint Joseph, Macau, China. Course / Discipline taught between 2014 and 2015
Audience research in Portugal: the case of Brazilian telenovela. Escola Superior de Comunicação Social. Single lecture, by invitation, in 2013
Biographical interviews and sensitive data collection: from implementation to analysis. Escola Superior de Comunicação Social. Single lecture, by invitation, in 2013
Studying sexual life: methodological approaches. ICS-ULisboa, Single lecture, by invitation, in 2012
Research Methods. Invited Assistant Professor (since 2012). BA in Social Work. Course / Faculdade de Ciências Humanas, Universidade Católica Portuguesa. Discipline taught between 2012 and 2013
Research Methods for the Social Sciences . Lecturer. BA in Social Work. Faculdade de Ciências Humanas, Universidade Católica Portuguesa. Course / Discipline taught between 2011 and 2012
Research Methods. Lecturer. MA in Communication Studies. Faculdade de Ciências Humanas, Universidade Católica Portuguesa. Course / Discipline taught between 2011 and 2012
Research Methods for the Social Sciences. Lecturer. BA in Communication Studies. Faculdade de Ciências Humanas, Universidade Católica Portuguesa. Course / Discipline taught between 2011 and 2012
Introduction to Social Sciences. BA in Economics and Management Studies. Lecturer. Faculdade de Ciências Humanas, Universidade Católica Portuguesa. Course / Discipline taught between 2009 and 2010
Research Methods. Lecturer (until 2012) and Invited Assistant Professor (since 2012). BA in Communication Sciences. Faculdade de Ciências Humanas, Universidade Católica Portuguesa. Course / Discipline taught between 2009 and 2013.
Research Methods. Master in Communication Studies. Invited Assistant Professor. Faculdade de Ciências Humanas, Universidade Católica Portuguesa. Course / Discipline taught between 2009 and 2014
Research Methods. BA in Social Work. Associate Lecturer (2002 – 2011). Faculdade de Ciências Humanas, Universidade Católica Portuguesa. Course / Discipline taught between 2002 and 2011
Research Methods. BA in Communication Studies. Associate Lecturer (2002 – 2011). Faculdade de Ciências Humanas, Universidade Católica Portuguesa. Course / Discipline taught between 2002 and 2011
Interpersonal Communication. Tutor. BA in Communication Sciences. Faculdade de Ciências Humanas, Universidade Católica Portuguesa. Course / Discipline taught between 2000 and 2002
Introduction to Communication Studies. Tutor. BA in Communication Sciences. Faculdade de Ciências Humanas, Universidade Católica Portuguesa. Course / Discipline taught between 2000 and 2002
Research Methodologies in Communication. Tutor. BA in Communication Studies. Faculdade de Ciências Humanas, Universidade Católica Portuguesa. Course / Discipline taught between 2000 and 2002