About Me

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Hello! My name is Guillem Rubio-Ramon and I am a (more-than-)human geographer at the School of Geosciences, University of Edinburgh.

My work integrates animal geographies and more-than-human political ecologies to study the reciprocal influence of animals and humans on each other's socio-cultural, economic and political lives. Through the use of a diverse range of multispecies qualitative methods, I have explored nature-society relations in various geographic contexts, investigating cases that range from animal agriculture and biosecurity to biodiversity conservation and human-wildlife interactions.

I hold a PhD in Geography from the University of Edinburgh (2024). I earned my MPhil in Development, Environment and Cultural Change at the Centre for the Development and the Environment at the University of Oslo (2019). I have also collaborated with organisations like the Centre for Contemporary Culture of Barcelona.

You can take a look at my current work, curriculum vitae, or contact me.

Yellow Cow by Franz Marc (1911)

Research

My work sits at the intersection of more-than-human geographies and political ecologies. My research explores multiple nature-society relations through a diversity of cases ranging from industrial animal agriculture to biodiversity conservation and environmental conflicts.

Current research

I currently work as a Post-Doctoral Researcher in the Human Geography work package of the project Remaking One Health: Decolonial Approaches to Street Dogs and Rabies Prevention in India. The project investigates the persistence of rabies as a public health problem in India. Challenging the (post)colonial One Health conceptualization of street dogs as out-of-place disease vectors, the project's analytical framework of multispecies cultures directs new interdisciplinary attention to the lived experiences of human and nonhuman animal actors.

Moreover, my recently completed PhD research at the University of Edinburgh examined how animal agriculture and meat cultures in Catalonia and Scotland have been built over a wealth of national (hi)stories of human-nonhuman entanglements. The project aimed —paraphrasing Natalie Koch and Tom Perreault— to analyze the kinds of imagined communities that pig farming and salmon farming invoke in both nations. While working on my thesis, I covered some of these aspects in conferences and seminars. As selected examples, I explored the relationship between biosecurity, nationalism and animal agriculture in this public conference and this poster presentation.

More-than-human geographies

My work in more-than-human geographies examines the relationship between nonhuman animals, culture and development. In this sense, my MPhil research (UiO, 2019) looked at the tensions between rural economic activities and wildlife reintroduction programmes in the Catalan Pyrenees. Since then, my interests have broadened to include other topics such as animal-based food systems (see below). Some of my work specifically centered on human-animal geographies has been presented in academic conferences and can be read in chapters and papers (see Publications). When it comes to public scholarship, I have written about some of these topics in media outlets like Sentient Media or  La Directa.

Animal agriculture and food geographies

As part of my doctoral research, I worked on topics related to animal agriculture and animal-source food systems through concepts and bodies of work like human-animal studies, food assemblages, biosecurity, and meat cultures. In this sense, I studied nationalism and animal agriculture as convergent phenomena. Furthermore, apart from my PhD research, in 2020 I assisted Dr Srinivasan's project on meat cultures and animal agriculture in contemporary India. As part of my completed doctoral research, in 2022 I co-organized the workshop “Food, Animals & the Nation” to explore, with a diversity of academic and non-academic stakeholders, the links between animal-based food systems, development, and economic nationalism.


Public engagement

Since my undergraduate studies at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, where I collaborated with the news outlet Núvol, I have considered public engagement a fundamental part of my professional development and civic engagement as a researcher and writer. As part of my MPhil studies in Development, Environment and Cultural Change at the University of Oslo I joined the Editorial Board of Tvergastein (2017-2019), a student journal at the Centre for Development and the Environment (SUM). During my postgraduate studies at SUM I also developed an internship at the Debates and Conferences Programme at the Centre for Contemporary Culture of Barcelona. In 2021, I returned to the CCCB but this time doing some academic consultancy work for the cycle of debates In Symbiosis, which celebrated (and was inspired by) the work of Lynn Margulis and Donna Haraway. In addition, I have also been part of the Sentient Media Writer Collective and have also contributed articles to different media outlets (See Publications). I am always open to new collaborations, cultural and academic projects, and opportunities  to work in multidisciplinary teams.

PhD Thesis

  • 2024. Building Animal Nations: Industrial Animal Agriculture in the Making of Catalonia and Scotland. University of Edinburgh. [Read here]

Journal articles, book chapters, and other academic publications

  • 2023."Animal Geographies". In Concise Encyclopedia of Human Geography, with Krithika Srinivasan, edited by David Demeritt and Loretta Lees. Edward Elgar Publishing. [Read here]
  • 2022. “Methodologies for animal geographies: approaches within and beyond the human” In Routledge Handbook of Methodologies in Human Geography, with Krithika Srinivasan, edited by Rosenberg, Coen and Lovell. Routledge. [Read here]
  • 2022. “Establishing nationhood through landscapes: the return of the bear to the Catalan Pyrenees” In Landscape as heritage: critical perspectives, with Karen V. L. Syse, edited by G. Petennati. Routledge. [Read here]
  • 2019. "The Bear and the Shepherd: Nationalism, Nature Politics and Rural Development in the Catalan Pyrenees". Universitetet i Oslo. [Read MPhil thesis here].

Conferences and seminars

  • 2023, May 10th. Work in progress on African Swine Fever and nation-building imaginaries at the Bridg’it! European network in the science of food and sustainability workshop. University of Giessen, Germany.
  • 2023, March 23rd. Hog Fevers: Bio(in)security and nationalism in Catalonia's pig industry. Pannelist at the session "Pig Worlds: Understanding porcine multiplicity in the Anthropocene". Finnish Antropological Society Conference 2023, University of Lapland - Arctic Centre.
  • 2022, October 8th. Escape the pen, escape the nation: salmon biopolitics in Scottish aquaculture. ERA 2022: Biopolitics, the Ecology of Humanity, and the Anthropocene, University College London.
  • 2022, August 25th. Co-organiser of the workshop "Food, Animals & the Nation". University of Edinburgh.
  • 2021, September 1st. Snouts on the road: More-than-human nationalism, animal welfare, and the Catalan pig industry. Panellist at the session “Reconfiguring farmed animal health and welfare: exploring and transcending borders between spaces, times, species and knowledge”. RGS-IBG Annual International Conference.
  • 2021, June 1st. ‘Meating the Nation’: More-than-human nationalisms in Catalonia and Scotland. Political Ecology Group seminars, University of Cambridge.
  • 2021, April 12th. Lecture on ecological restoration as part of the course "Development, Environment and Natural Resources" within IBEI's Master's Programme in International Development.
  • 2021, May 28th. Bio(in)security and more-than-human nationalism: the case of pig farming in Catalonia. Witnessing and Worlding Beyond the Human: An Interdisciplinary and Interspecies Conversation. Center for Advanced Study, University of Illinois [Watch presentation]
  • 2021, May 3rd.'Meating the nation': More-than-human nationalism in Catalonia and Scotand'. PGR Conference: School of Geosciences, University of Edinburgh. [Watch presentation]
  • 2021, February 25th. Seminar: More than human, less than State: animal stateless nationalisms in Catalonia and Scotland. Institute of Environmental Science and Technology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona
  • 2019, March 28th. Animal nationalisms: unbuilding narratives of nationhood and belonging in biodiversity conservation projects. Bergen International Student Conference: Towards sustainable futures: facing global challenges today, University of Bergen.
  • 2018, November 27th. L’ós bru als Pirineus: consideracions ètiques sobre el programa de reintroducció Piros Life. Centre for Animal Ethics, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.

Public scholarship and other publications

  • 2024. "Hybrid Publics of Human and Other-than-Human Life: Free-Living Dogs and the 'Green' and 'Healthy' City in India". Berliner Gazette. [Read full article]
  • 2024. "The reinvention of industrial pig farming in Catalonia". RGS Animal Geographies Blog. [Read full article]
  • 2022. "Después del colapso 🕳️ | Qué nos enseñan DUNE y NAUSICAA". YouTube Collaboration with Alba Lafarga. [Watch full video]
  • 2022. “¿Cómo miramos la naturaleza?: La princesa Mononoke y la ecología”. YouTube Collaboration with Alba Lafarga. [Watch full video]
  • 2020. “Who Killed Cachou? Brown Bear’s Unusual Death Ignites Controversy”. Sentient Media. [Read full article]
  • 2020. “Els humans no som el virus”. La Directa. [Read full article]
  • –––– Translation: “Humans are not the virus” [Read translation here]
  • 2019. "Petites illes com el passat". Nabius. [Read full article]

CV

EN: You can read and download my complete CV here.

Last updated: Jan 2024

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