Newsletter September 2026
Welcome to our second newsletter!
We’re excited to share we are preparing our second event called SEAL. Over the summer, the BeCHAS-founders were spreading the HAS-word at various conferences. Feel free to share this newsletter yourself with interested colleagues, friends, curious family members, and others.
Not subscribed yet? You can do so here!
In this letter
Introducing SEAL 2026
BeCHAS presenting at conferences
What’s new in HAS?
Introducing SEAL 2026
On October 15th 2026, BeCHAS will organise a Student Event on Animal Learning (SEAL).
SEAL is an event catered to students, but everyone with an interest in Human-Animal Studies is welcome! With SEAL, BeCHAS aims to introduce students to ways they can explore the human-animal bond from their own discipline. It promises to be an inspiring evening, with 6 scholars narrating how they - from their own field of study - look at the human-animal relationship. More detailed information about the scholars and their disciplines will follow soon!
SEAL will be a Dutch-speaking event, and will take place on October 15th at 6.30pm. The event will be organised at Ghent University, in the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences (Ghent, Sint-Pietersnieuwstraat 41, Technicum T2). Make sure to put SEAL in your agenda and follow our LinkedIn to remain up-to-date!
BeCHAS presenting at conferences
No rest for the BeCHAS-founders! Over the summer, they spread the word on BeCHAS at various conferences all over Europe.
At the Day of Sociology (Antwerp, Belgium) on May 26th, Marie Verstraete presented her article Animal Allure and Classroom Companionship: a Sociological Account of Teachers’ Experiences with their Classroom Animals.
At the start of July, Laura Goditiabois traveled to Paris, France for the International Society for Anthrozoology (ISAZ) Conference. She presented her article From Puppies to Commodities: Discourse, Domination and the Legal Positioning of Dogs.
Lille Dumortier presented her article Confronting Problems in Food Production Through a Focus on Chickens’ Labour in the research stream Organising Animals: the Dynamics of Interspecies Power, Privilege and Possibility on the European Group for Organizational Studies (EGOS) Conference. Mid August Lille also attended a summer school called KATAJA PhD Course: Multispecies Perspectives in Business and Organizing.
At the end of August, both Marlies Bockstal and Marie Verstraete were present at the European Sociological Association (ESA) Conference in Warsaw, Poland. Together with a colleague from Lithuania, Rūta Pelikšienė, Marlies organised a new research stream called Vegan Sociology for nonhuman animals. Her own presentation was titled Selling “the Perfect Match”: How “Responsible” Pedigree Dog Breeding Contributes to the Legitimation of “Pet Keeping”. Marie presented her article called Animal Assemblage in the Multispecies Classroom: an ANT study on the Assembly of Multispecies Classroom Networks in another research stream called Animals and Society.
Are you also interested in presenting your HAS-research at a conference? Or do you wish to publish your research? Look here to view journals, associations and more!
What’s new in HAS?
Animal Ethics and Aesthetics of Attention: Teaching Resource
Open Access Teaching Resource by Friederike Zenker and Sune Borkfelt
Animated Wor(l)ds: Language and Relationality for Multispecies Kinship
A multimedia book by Elizabeth Tavella and Eva Spiegelhofer
"By animating the words of more-than-human worlds, we attune to the languages of other animals, plants, and ecosystems with care and attentiveness towards all beings."
Human-Animal Connection Network
In Canada they are also establishing a Network for Human-Animal Connections Research and Collaboration
PHAIR Animal Advocacy Conference
Takes place on July 14th-17th 2027 at the University of Kent, Canterbury, UK
Registration opens December 2026
Job Application for Research Associate/Fellow in the Human-Animal Interaction
University of York - Department of Health Sciences
Applications close 10th of September 2026
Got news?
Have anything to share with us/with the community? Please let us know via info@bechas.be!