Kathryn Gillespie PhD (kathrynagillespie.com) is a writer, multispecies ethnographer, & feminist geographer. She is a Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of Kentucky in the Department of Geography & the Applied Environmental & Sustainability Studies Program. Her research & teaching interests focus on: ethnography & qualitative methods; feminist & multi-species theory & methods; food & agriculture; political economy; critical animal studies; human-environment relations. She is the author of The Cow with Ear Tag #1389. She has also published in numerous scholarly journals & has co-edited three books: Vulnerable Witness: The Politics of Grief in the Field; Critical Animal Geographies: Politics, Intersections and Hierarchies in a Multispecies World; and Economies of Death: Economic Logics of Killable Life & Grievable Death. Kathryn has volunteered with Freedom Education Project Puget Sound, Food Empowerment Project and Pigs Peace Sanctuary.

In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “what matters?”

Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is here on YouTube.

We discuss:

00:00 Welcome

01:15 Kathryn's Intro

  • Understanding the harms animals experience under capitalist & settler colonial regimes, particularly in food systems

  • "Bringing individual animals into the frame"

  • Field work in farms & auction yards "spaces of exploitation"

  • Sanctuaries: Seeing the lasting harms of exploitation but also "places to imagine flourishing" & rehabilitation

  • Multi-species auto-ethnography. Everyday violence & care

  • Living w/chickens "turned us vegan" & lab-rescued beagles

  • Academia & activism

07:52 What's Real?

  • Raised somewhat in the Episcopal church

  • "That just did not resonate with me"

  • Visiting Baptist churches "that was incredible... a joyful explosion of faith"

  • A Buddhist grandmother & "Living Buddha, Living Christ" by Thich Nhat Hanh

  • Practising Tibetan Buddhism as a teenager

  • Buddhist compassion & Episcopalian blessing of animals on St. Francis' day

  • Supernatural vs. naturalistic Buddhism "The supernatural stuff never appealed to me"

  • Envying the pure, comforting faith of a fundamentalist Christian best friend

  • Compassion for the other or because god tells you?

  • Pagan & Wiccan practics

  • People re-connecting with nature during COVID

  • The etymology of "real" in Latin/Sanksrit from "wealth"... the capitalisation/commodification of life

  • Emotional, embodied, lived experiences re: meaning, connection & knowledge making. Another form of evidence

32:10 What Matters?

...and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info.

Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at Sentientism.info. Join our "I'm a Sentientist" wall via this simple form.

Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is here on FaceBook. Come join us there!

Thanks Graham.

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