Emily Major
Emily Major is an academic activist who recently has a PhD in Human-Animal Studies from the University of Canterbury in Aotearoa New Zealand. Her research focuses on how speciesism and the framing of nonhuman animals may prevent the healthy development of empathy through the desensitization and normalization of cruelty to animals, with a particular focus on the (mis)treatment of 'pest' species in conservation. Her interdisciplinary background in critical animal studies, intersectional feminism, and animal/human geography informs her work. She is a long-term committee member of the Australasian Animal Studies Association, a Research Fellow with PAN Works, and a dedicated Board member of the New Zealand Anti-Vivisection Society. In addition, she contributes to her blog, Framing Speciesism, which was funded by the Culture & Animals Foundation, and is working on a discourse analysis of children's literature, conservation narratives, and speciesism in New Zealand.