

Research areas
- Human-Animal Relations, Multispecies Ethnography
- Animal Protection, Law and Nature, Anthropocentrism
- The Politics of Care, Care Ethics
Current research
I am a sociologist and qualitative researcher with a particular interest in human-animal relations.
In my Ph.D. research, I explore how legal animal protection shapes standardised practices of care in the context of industrial farming.
In the research, I explore how nonhuman animals become legible as subjects worthy of protection within the current framework of animal welfare. How does a politics of suffering play out in the context of agricultural control and management of nonhuman life?
The project includes fieldwork research performed at farmed animal sanctuaries in rural Denmark, exploring the everyday life and care at the sanctuary. For this study, I rely on a methodological design combining multispecies ethnography with legal geography.
Within the socio-legal tradition, I take inspiration from previous studies that cultivate ethnographic sensibilities concerning the role and place of law in everyday life. I am particularly interested in addressing the following:
- How law and space are imbricated (legal geography)
- How the law is shaping and defining multispecies communities, landscapes and societies (more-than-human law, multispecies ethnography)
- Pluralist approaches to the law
I am a member of the Lund University Critical Animal Studies Network (LUCASN). The network aims to act as a platform and an interdisciplinary hub at Lund University for scholars and students interested in Critical Animal Studies. For more information about the network, see www.kom.lu.se/lucasn.
Read more about Marie Leth-Espensen's research project in the article below.
Publications
Displaying of publications. Sorted by year, then title.
Animals and the Politics of Suffering : Essays on Law, Care and Interspecies Relations
Marie Leth-Espensen
(2023)
DissertationBeyond Law's Anthropocentrism. A Sociolegal Reflection on Animal Law and the More-than-human Turn
Marie Leth-Espensen, Måns Svensson
(2021) Scandinavian Studies in Law, 67 p.35-50
Journal articleRe-making Domestic Natures. Multispecies Life and Care at the Sanctuary
Marie Leth-Espensen
(2021)
Conference paper: abstractChallenging Law’s Hegemonic Regimes of Care: Perspective on Farmed Animal Sanctuaries
Marie Leth-Espensen
(2021)
Conference paper: abstractAnti-cruelty, violence and the law. Animal protection in early 19th-century England
Marie Leth-Espensen
(2020) Argos – Historical & Archaeological Animal Studies/ <em>Argos – historische & archäologische Tierstudien</em>, 1 p.125-134
Book chapterKill Your Favorite Dish : Examining the Role of New Carnivorism in perpetuating Meat Eating
Marie Leth-Espensen, Mathias Elrød Madsen
(2019) Society & Animals, 29 p.376-392
Journal articleBook Review: Animal Rights Activism: A Moral–Sociological Perspective on Social Movements
Marie Leth-Espensen
(2018) Acta Sociologica, 61 p.223-225
ReviewBook review: Gonzalo Villanueva, A Transnational History of the Australian Animal Movement
Marie Leth-Espensen
(2018) Interface: a journal for and about social movements, 10 p.62-359
Review
Background
Marie Leth-Espensen is a sociologist with a degree from the University of Copenhagen. Currently, she is a Ph.D. Candidate at the Department of Sociology of Law, Lund University.