Date: 9-12 June 2026

Convenors: Natasha Fijn and Muhammad A. Kavesh

For more than a decade, multispecies anthropology has moved from the disciplinary margins to the centre, foregrounding Indigenous and local knowledges to deepen our understanding of co-existence with more-than-human beings. Yet how do we move beyond entrenched categorical binaries such as nature versus culture, domestic versus wild, and native versus feral? The global movement and entanglement of genes, viruses, breeds, and species require renewed attention to new forms of social, economic, and ecological engagement. This panel takes into consideration the layered encounters between humans and other beings to examine different forms of multispecies connection in greater depth. By treating encounters with other species as openings for methodological experimentation, contributors will have the opportunity to consider how multispecies anthropology can engage with new forms of analytical, collaborative, and ethical reorientations within the discipline. In doing so, this panel asks how multispecies studies might not only unsettle disciplinary and methodological boundaries but also expand anthropology’s capacity to engage with complex depths of relationality that shapes lives across species.