The Australasian Animal Studies Association has the aim of encouraging rigorous scholarly, scientific and artistic enquiry into the human- animal interrelation. Furthermore this cross-disciplinary intellectual and creative work can inform and permeate the treatment and understanding of animals in national, state and local educational institutions, industries and decision-making forums.
To achieve this, the AASA activates a community of animal studies scholars, scientists, creative artists and animal advocates to encourage cross-national and disciplinary exchange and, more particularly, to promote work that has animals and human-animal relations in Australia as a focus.
As part of this the AASA aims to promote and encourage ongoing, accessible, dialogue in a public forum through a regular blog. The blog is intended to be inclusive and present a wide variety of opinions. As such human-animal studies scholars and students (including those working in aligned fields of critical animal studies and anthrozoology), animal activists and advocates, are encouraged to contact us to discuss guest contributions.
Guidelines for Contributors
Only pieces that reflect our position of a critical yet compassionate approach to the study of animals in society will be accepted. Please email nik.taylor@flinders.edu.au to discuss potential projects with the blog conveners.
Please read the following carefully and contact us if you have any questions.
- Aim to keep the post around 750-1000 words. Feel free to use hyperlinks within it but please check they are current at time of submission.
- Please ground your work in scholarly literature. This does not mean we expect dense tracts but we do like you to substantiate your claims with reference to the animal studies field (or elsewhere as appropriate). Ensure the posts are relevant to scholars and animal advocates where possible.
- Please write in an accessible manner.
- Please avoid vitriol and unnecessarily negative posts. We welcome passion in the posts but will not accept personal attacks and/or unnecessarily violent imagery of animal harm.
- Please ensure you are not naming others – or referring to them in ways that make their identity obvious – unless you are referring to publically available media, commentary or scholarly work.
- We will not accept previously published pieces due to copyright complications.
- Please include a brief statement about yourself when sending in your piece. This should be no more than a couple of sentences and can include links to your own website or blog. An image to accompany the post would be great. If you do not supply one we will choose a generic one for you, in keeping with the style of our blog page.
The AASA blog conveners reserve the right to reject posts that do not fit within these guidelines.
Costs
We voluntarily maintain this site because we believe that dialogue on issues that affect animals in society is an important way to advocate for positive change in the way animals are treated. As such, we do not have a budget and cannot offer guest contributors any financial compensation.
Editing and Ownership
Generally speaking we will not edit your submissions but may offer suggestions about them prior to submission. Unfortunately we do not have the time to work with authors on grammar/style and so must reserve the right to reject posts that are not written clearly.
All guest posts are the intellectual property of the guest bloggers themselves.
Contact: nik.taylor@flinders.edu.au