New!
Multispecies Futures Global Institute 

The Multispecies Futures Global Institute is an exciting new lab initiative.

 

It has a crucial double-mission: to bring the lab to the world and the world to the lab. 

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The Institute seeds the basic concepts, innovative methods and transdisciplinary approaches in Multispecies Studies within global scholarly communities via symposia and intensive workshops. Conversely these nomadic gathering-spaces (or watering holes!) function as a way for the lab to learn from diverse bioculturally rich contexts and communities.

 

The Institute will especially focus on offering learning opportunities and equitable access to lab concepts and methods to less-materially and financially privileged communities, while also humbly listening to local experts and ecocultural communities (both human and non) to nurture place- and space-specific knowledge together.

 

Through its work, this new global arm of the lab aims to encourage the next generation of transdisciplinary scholars in different parts of the world. It seeks to boost innovative research, teaching policy and community engagement on a planet that is rapidly facing the collapse of important natural and cultural systems.

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Structure and Content

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     Typically designed as a four/five-day intensive program, the Institute will convene every year in different global location(s), bringing together university students, scholars, and ecocultural practitioners to engage with multispecies thinking across diverse ecological and cultural contexts. Every intensive four or five-day workshop and/or summer school provides opportunities for advanced undergraduate and graduate (Masters/Ph.D.) students, combining seminars, collaborative discussions, and site-based learning.

 

The educational content will feature primary concepts in the young field of Multispecies Studies. that examine how humans are deeply entangled with animals, plants, fungi, microorganisms, and material ecosystems. Different iterations of the Institute can either feature a special thematic focus or may explore more broadly instances of multispecies co-becoming. Regardless of its focus, every iteration will engage and invite students and scholars to reflect on how diverse agential relationships shape ecological and cultural futures in place- and space-specific ecocultural systems. Participants will explore key concepts in multispecies studies—such as ecological kinship, multispecies ethics, environmental justice, and more-than-human sentience, agency and culture—while engaging with local environments, experts and other communities (human and non) at the host location.

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A Global Community of Multispecies Studies Scholars​

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    By moving across different regions of the world, the Multispecies Futures Global Institute aims to foster cross-cultural dialogue and interdisciplinary collaboration around some of the most urgent challenges of our time, including climate change, biodiversity loss, and the transformation of human–nonhuman relationships in the Anthropocene. Through embodied presence and intellectual exchange via collaborative discussions and field trips, the institute seeks to cultivate new approaches to multispecies coexistence, care, and planetary wellbeing. The lab also seeks to foster a new network of a global community of scholars invested in exploring the multispecies posthumanities. As more participants complete this experience, the alumni of the institute will be encouraged to become an integral part of an interconnected global community.