Professor Pru Hobson-West has recently returned from an invited visit to the University of Tampere, Finland. Pru gave a keynote presentation to the two day October 2025 event. The seminar was entitled ‘Studying animals from social science perspectives’ and was organised by TaSTI (Tampere Centre for Science, Technology and Innovation Studies). Professor Hobson-West talked about ‘Vaccines, veterinarians, and the entanglement of human and animal healthcare’, and also shared details of her career history to date.
The seminar was a wonderful opportunity for scholars with an interest in animals to come together to debate ideas and different perspective and methodologies. Topics and methods were varied, but overall the seminar covered themes including animal visibility and invisibility; how to encourage social change; and the potential ‘riskiness’ of research on human-non-human relations.
View details of the programme and all speakers.
The photo shows one representation of non-humans (Moomins at Helsinki airport).
Institute for Science and SocietySchool of Sociology and Social PolicyLaw and Social SciencesUniversity of NottinghamUniversity Park Nottingham, NG7 2RD