Alserkal Arts Foundation
Anthropologist Neha Vora explores interspecies kinships in our everyday urban environments.
Neha Vora’s current research focuses on stray cat care in the UAE, considering our local cities as multispecies environments where nonhumans and humans both make places for themselves and form relationships with each other. Part of this project is to observe the place-making practices of the cats themselves.
In the second convening in this series, we will gather for a workshop around thinking about the city through a nonhuman point of view. What would Dubai and other UAE cities look like if we centered the social spaces and habitats of stray cats and other nonhumans who share space with us? And how might thinking through a multispecies lens help us envision built environments that are more accommodating to the needs of all urban dwellers?
Our workshop will center on mapping the city through cats. We will also share a podcast for the session which will provide an example of how scholars in animal studies are approaching the topic of multispecies cities and nonhuman placemaking.
Date: Tuesday, 10 September, 2024
Time: 7 - 8.30PM
Location: WH31, Alserkal Avenue
Click here to register.
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Dr. Neha Vora is Professor of Anthropology in the Department of International Studies at the American University of Sharjah. She pursues interdisciplinary research in themes such as diasporas and migration, citizenship, globalized higher education, gender, and human-nonhuman encounters. Her books include Impossible Citizens: Dubai’s Indian Diaspora (Duke, 2013) and Teach for Arabia: American Universities, Liberalism, and Transnational Qatar (Stanford, 2018).
The session is part of the Alserkal Arts Foundation’s Research Rooms programme where we invite a cohort of locally based researchers to make their home at our residency studios for the summer. Working across anthropology, art history, political science, performance practice, and curation, the cohort invites audiences to respond to their ongoing research investigations through focused and intimate public programmes over the summer. Learn more about the programme here.