Dr Catherine Oliver

Lecturer in Sociology (Climate Change)

Profile

I am a geographer interested in animals, the more-than-human, and environments. At Lancaster, I am teaching and researching the Sociology of Climate Change. I am currently researching the birds of Morecambe Bay, exploring the connections between the social and cultural life of humans, seabirds, and the bay. I am also the Chair of the newly-founded Animal Geography Working Group of the Royal Geographical Society.

My first book, ‘Veganism, Archives, and Animals,’ was published with Routledge in 2021. The book provides a unique and timely contribution to debates within animal and more-than-human geographies and is the first of its kind in “vegan geographies.” The book draws from my doctoral research on veganism in Britain (University of Birmingham, 2020). I am currently writing a second book on veganism, What is Veganism For?, which will be published in June 2024 with Bristol University Press.

Between 2020 and 2022, I was a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Geography, University of Cambridge on an ERC-funded project researching urban chickens in London. This research responds to changing demands on food systems, ecologies, and urban space, seeking to understand how non-human life is governed and regulated in cities. I am currently writing a book, The Chicken City, about this research (Manchester University Press).

In 2021, I was appointed as a Royal Geographical Society/Wiley Digital Archives Fellow (2021), receiving a fellowship to research animals in geographical exploration. My project is a Wiley Case Study, with an online curated exhibit. In 2021-22, I was also a fellow on the Global Urban History Project’s Dream Conversations series on Cities and the Anthropocene in 2021.

From 2016 to 2017, I worked in the archives of animal activist Richard D. Ryder at the British Library on a PhD placement with Dr Polly Russell and Gill Ridgeley, producing the British Library’s online curation, ‘Archiving Activism.

Other recent projects include a feminist geography research project theorising academic conferences as microcosms of the university, an ongoing project on more-than-human metabolisms, and a newly launched project on alternative communities and the seek for connection in capitalist Britain.

I currently teach on SOCL221 Climate Change and Society, SOCL521 Environment and Culture, SOCL931 Methods in STS, and SOCL201 Skills for Researching Social Life. I also supervise PhD students, Masters projects, and undergraduate dissertations.

Selected Publications

Veganism, Archives, and Animals: Beyond-human geographies
Oliver, C. 13/08/2021 London : Routledge. 162 p. ISBN: 9780367692773. Electronic ISBN: 9781003141211.
Book

Transforming paradise: Neoliberal regeneration and more-than-human urbanism in Birmingham
Oliver, C. 28/02/2023 In: Urban Studies. 60, 3, p. 519-536. 18 p.
Journal article

The Opposite of Extinction.
Oliver, C. 1/05/2022 In: Environment and History . 28, 2, p. 197-202. 6 p.
Journal article

Resisting the “academic circle jerk": precarity and friendship at academic conferences in UK higher education
Oliver, C., Morris, A. 25/05/2022 In: British Journal of Sociology of Education. 43, 4, p. 603-622. 20 p.
Journal article

Beyond‐human ethics: The animal question in institutional ethical reviews
Oliver, C. 12/2021 In: Area. 53, 4, p. 619-626. 8 p.
Journal article

Blue Avian Ecologies: Seabirds & Climate Change in Morecambe Bay
01/11/2022 → 31/10/2025
Research

Longing to Belong: Cults, Communes and Conspiracy Theories
01/08/2022 → …
Research

Animals of the Royal Geographical Society
01/01/2021 → …
Research

More-than-human Metabolism
01/12/2020 → …
Research

The Chicken City
01/07/2020 → 02/09/2022
Research

Dis-belonging, Exclusion, and Re-thinking Academic Conferences
01/06/2017 → 06/06/2022
Research

Animal Rights and Food Fights: The British Library
01/09/2016 → 31/03/2017
Research

Towards a beyond-human geography: veganism and multispecies world
30/09/2015 → 15/05/2020
Research

Animals, Health and Wellbeing
Public Lecture/ Debate/Seminar

Lancaster Environment Lecture: Feeding the World without Devouring the Planet by George Monbiot
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience

Blue Avian Landscapes, Morecambe Bay
Oral presentation

Animals in the Royal Geographical Society Archives
Public Lecture/ Debate/Seminar

Animals in the Royal Geographical Society Archives
Public Lecture/ Debate/Seminar

PhD Placement
Fellowship awarded competitively

Royal Geographical Society Wiley Digital Archives Fellow
Fellowship awarded competitively

Global Urban History Project Emerging Scholar
Fellowship awarded competitively

Newnham College Postdoctoral Research Associate
Fellowship awarded competitively