On 3 March, the Wellcome Trust-funded research project Multispecies Mutualisms officially launched with an inaugural workshop bringing together colleagues from across the University of Sheffield with a shared interest in multispecies relations and the complex ways humans live alongside other species.
The project examines the idea of “mutualism” — relationships between species often assumed to be mutually beneficial — and asks how these relationships are understood, represented and governed across contexts including health, conservation, agriculture and everyday human–animal encounters. Bringing together expertise from the social sciences and humanities, the research explores the ethical and political questions that arise when claims of mutual benefit mask unequal relationships between species. Professor Robert McKay (School of English) contributes an environmental humanities perspective to the project, exploring how literature, culture and narrative shape the ways humans understand and imagine relationships with other species.
The workshop featured five external speakers. Prof Erica Fudge used historical beekeeping to question whether mutuality is possible when animals appear in archives only as property. Dr Rich Gorman critiqued the pharmaceutical use of horseshoe crabs, arguing that claims of mutual benefit can obscure animal harm and deflect ethical scrutiny. Dr Maisie Tomlinson explored how horses in equine-assisted personal development are interpreted as emotionally attuned “prey animals”, raising questions about whose responses count in therapeutic settings. Prof Helen Wilson reflected on fraught urban coexistence with black-legged kittiwakes, highlighting tensions between conservation and nuisance narratives. Prof Krithika Srinivasan interrogated assumptions about human–dog relationships, suggesting that mutualism often becomes visible only over longer temporal and broader spatial scales.
The project team includes researchers and staff from across the University: Alasdair Cochrane, Rosaleen Duffy, Lucy Dunning, Eva Haifa Giraud and Robert McKay.
If you would like to learn more about the project, please feel free to get in touch with the team.