Elizabeth Vander Meer
Postgraduate Researcher
Anthropology
About me:
I completed my first postgraduate degrees in environmental policy and ethics with focus on biodiversity conservation; my PhD thesis critiqued the mainstream conception of biodiversity and argued for a focus on biodiversification (continued evolution) and a feeling for the organism, with consideration of these approaches in the context of two case studies in Latin American biosphere reserves. I later developed a keen interest in primates after volunteering at a rescue centre and conducted independent research, building on feminist philosophy of science studies of primates I touched on in my thesis.
The MA Anthrozoology, which I obtained with a distinction, has led me in a new career direction. I have had a constant passion for and interest in understanding human-animal relationships. My current PhD research will make contributions to Qualitative Anthrozoology, Performance Studies and debates in Animal Welfare and Protection. I have most recently applied ideas in biopower/biopolitics and phenomenology to captive animals in zoos and circuses.
I am a vegan, live with two lovely rescue cats, Reilly and Zoey (pictured), and volunteer twice a month at a small zoo.
Website: Primates: anthrozoological perspectives
Twitter: lizvmeer
LinkedIn: Elizabeth Vander Meer
Research Unit:
Anthrozoology
Research Project:
Current PhD Research:
Tradition, biopower and individual wild animals in French circuses
Circus tradition that includes a central role for animal performance persists in France and is afforded governmental support and promotion through the Ministry of Culture. However, traditional circuses in Europe that perform with wild animals are being challenged publicly and altered through the enactment of legal bans on use of these animals, reflecting increasing unease with wild animal performance in particular.
My PhD project involves multi-sited multispecies ethnographic research of current 21st century traditions of wild animal performance in circuses in France, to investigate circus discourse and the lives of tigers caught within entertaining narratives. I will undertake fieldwork within two circuses that perform in and around Paris, as well as following the lives of individual tigers rescued from a French circus and rehomed in a zoo in Spain. I build on existing research that describes the blurring and maintaining of boundaries between humans and other animals in circuses, exploring how French traditions of wild animal performance obscure individuality, while at the same time considering how individual animals become and can be made visible. Ideas in biopower and performance studies infused with phenomenology provide the theoretical frame for this research which is located at the crossroads of Anthrozoology, Ethnographic Anthropology and Applied Philosophy. The study produced will capture a rare analytical account of an oral and physical tradition, while also giving full consideration to animal experience, of benefit to scholars of performance but also to those considering the welfare of animals in circuses, with great potential to feed into policy discussions and decisions.
Latest publication: Vander Meer, E. (2019). Returning to Wild? Four lions' journey from circus to sanctuary. Humanimalia, 10:2: 180-202.
Research Supervisory team:
Dr. Julien Dugnoille, First Supervisor
Professor Henry Buller, Second Supervisor
Research Wider Research Interests:
My interests include ethnoprimatology, human-wildlife coexistence, captivity for animals in circuses and zoos and exotic animal/wildlife rehabilitation.
