Introducing... Dr Ekaterina Gladkova

Ekaterina Gladkova is a lecturer in the department of Art, Design and Social Sciences at Northumbria University in Newcastle. She is interested in critical understandings of interrelations/interconnections between the environment, human and non-human. Her research expertise includes: multidisciplinary understandings of food production and consumption, with a particular focus on industrial farming; industrially farmed non-human animals; environmental, ecological and multispecies justice.

Project description:

We are living at a time of multiple intersecting crises – climate change, biodiversity loss, natural resource depletion, pollution. Food production generally and industrial animal farming in particular have a crucial role to play in worsening environmental devastation. Cutting across environmental humanities, critical animal studies, art and philosophy, her project will develop speculative multispecies futures of food production and explore applications of the notions of equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) in the context of industrial animal farming.

During her time at the IAS, she will be considering the following questions in an open-ended fashion:

• What are the anthropocentric meanings of EDI?
• How can anthropocentric meanings of EDI be applied to the world of industrially farmed animals in order to transition to multispecies futures of food production and address the existing environmental crises? Can anthropocentrism in the philosophical approach of animal life be avoided?
• How can a phenomenology of animality be further developed? What implications will it have for humans living alongside other animals?

The research presents further development of a public facing research project Re: Pig run in collaboration with Naho Matsuda, an artist and a senior research fellow at the Interaction Research Studio at the School of Design at Northumbria University. Re: Pig is positioned at the intersection of art, design and social sciences and looks at industrial pig farming through a multispecies lens. It builds on her previous research into harms from industrial farming specifically and food production more generally.