Staff profile

My research focuses on the theory and practice of incorporating other species of animals into our historical narratives by engaging with concepts of animal agencies. Rather than studying other species as passive objects of human cultures, I explore how historians can utilise interdisciplinary approaches to examine the past as co-constituted interspecies realities. Following in the footsteps of innovative historians whose work I stand on the shoulders of, such an approach to history can open rich avenues for research that offer us new ways of analysing historical change and in doing so enable us to see that both human and non-human animals have been, are, and will be, important historical actors.

Within an overarching interest in historicising the entangled interspecies relations produced by 'invasive species', my current PhD project explores the history of human-squirrel relations in the British Isles since 1857. By drawing on a range of source material, this work intends to illuminate how the success of the 'invasive American grey squirrel' in particular has provoked a range of human responses, from the individual level to that of the British State. While in many contexts such human-squirrel encounters have been peaceful and mutually beneficial, this thesis' focus is on the more competitive and often violent interactions that have occurred, incorporating a range of entangled species and their interests. The justification for this approach is that these competitive and violent relations persist, and thus require more immediate reflection due to the sentience(s) of all involved (a sentience(s) widely acknowledged now, as well as also in the past). My approach therefore incorporates an element of ethical reflection that many animal and environmental historians advocate.

Some historians may initially recoil from such historical analyses and question their worth, particularly in relation to a small rodent that may at first thought be considered to have no consequential value with regards to understanding historical change. However, my aim in this project is to show that this assumption could not be further from historical reality and that these squirrel populations, with their agentic capabilities, entangled and produced in complex interspecies relations, have repeatedly changed multiple intersecting British landscapes (conceptual, cultural, ecological, economic, social, and political). Indeed, as this thesis highlights, during the twentieth century and continuing into the present, fundamental notions of human sovereignty have become challenged by the continued movement, adaptability, and successes of grey squirrels. Thus, whether a supporter, a detractor, ambivalent, or uninterested in such squirrel populations, one cannot deny their substantial affects on our interspecies communities.

Before moving to Durham, I was educated at the University of York where I was awarded my BA in History, my MA by Research in History, and my MA in Political Theory for which I achieved the highest mark in the department.

Research interests:

Animal/Interspecies History

Environmental History

British History

Historical Methodologies

Political Theory