Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology, Dr Daniela Peluso, in conjunction with Postdoctoral Research Fellow Dr Francesca Mezzenzana, have organised a panel for the American and Canadian Anthropological (AAA/CASCA) Meetings on Changing Climates as part of the Anthropology of Psychological Anthropology Society entitled Empathy: underpinnings of broader global landscapes.
The participants representing a broad range of geographical regions presented papers that relate empathy to current climate and environmental changes. The panel was facilitated by two specialist discussants. Both Daniela and Francesca focused particularly on empathy in regard to the relations of indigenous Amazonians to non-human others and the rainforest.
Francesca and Daniela’s latest panel builds on their previous workshop at the Cathedral Lodge entitled Conversations on Empathy: An interdisciplinary encounter organised by the School of Anthropology and Conservation. Furthermore, empathy is the main focus of Francesca’s Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral fellowship here at the School where she examines how children in the Ecuadorian Amazon learn to perceive non-humans as animate in their development of an ‘empathy’ towards them.