Marie Leth-Espensen

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 interested in human-animal relations, food and eating.

In my research, I investigate how current (anthropocentric) legal and political paradigms shape and define multispecies life, landscapes and communities. To this end, I draw on a wide range of research from socio-legal research, Critical Animal Studies, multispecies studies and feminist care theory and ethics.

I earned my doctoral degree from Lund University in 2023 through a multi-sited research project concerning the predominant ethical, political and legal responses to the situation of nonhuman animals in intensive farming systems. In the research, I explored how nonhuman animals have become legible as subjects worthy of protection within the current orders and how the ’politics of suffering’ manifest in the context of agricultural control and management of nonhuman life.

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 about the research Marie Leth-Espensen did for her PhD thesis in this article.