Rebecca is a graduate student in Anthrozoology at the University of Exeter. Their research focuses on how ecocentric Asian elephant tourism camps in Myanmar construct the image of a ‘retirement sanctuary’ for lumber industry elephants that have been laid off or injured. They believe that recognition of these elephant individuals as workers in multi-species workplaces, and thus contributors to a multi-species society, can positively impact their wellbeing.
Rebecca’s academic background is in Social and Cultural Anthropology, having earned a B.A. from Memorial University of Newfoundland with a specific focus on systems of oppression and the ways in which various groups become marginalised by the individualistic agenda of late-stage capitalism. Their academic and advocacy work aims to expose the fallacy of ‘invisible’ struggles, instead highlighting the ways that certain classes of human and morethanhuman animals are consciously and actively erased. Rebecca is also the co-host of The Shifting Lens podcast, a project which aims to make critical Anthrozoological concepts more accessible to non-academics.