Dr Laura McLauchlan

Dr Laura McLauchlan

Visiting Fellow
Arts,Design & Architecture
School of Humanities & Languages

My area of speciality is how transformative change takes place, particularly with respect to environmental and interspecies care and connection.  I investigate the ways in which we come to care for other species and lives, as well as the sociocultural and discursive inheritances that can block such connection. 

I am trained in multispecies anthropology, informed by material feminisms, environmental humanities scholarship, medical anthropology and trauma studies. My work, which ranges from studying hedgehog-human relations, to tree-planting and pedagogical practice, pays ethnographic attention to emergent and marginal ontologies and practices that might allow for greater responsiveness to the interconnection of life.

Through research and teaching, my work attends to the question of what sorts of kindness, delight, and environmental (including human) flourishing might be possible in the face of our current environmental crises.
 

  • Book Chapters | 2021
    McLauchlan L, 2021, 'Multispecies Ethnography', in Handbook of Historical Animal Studies, pp. 375 - 392, http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/9783110536553-030
    Book Chapters | 2021
    McLauchlan L, 2021, 'Multispecies Ethnography', in Handbook of Historical Animal Studies, De Gruyter Oldenbourg, pp. 393 - 408, http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/9783110536553-030
    Book Chapters | 2021
    McLauchlan L, 2021, 'On becoming a massively distributed thing: Extricability, collectives and hedgehog death-by-plastic', in Farrelly T; Taffel S (ed.), The Lives and Afterlives of Plastic, University of California Press, Oakland, CA
    Book Chapters | 2020
    McLauchlan L, 2020, 'Urchins in the infrastructure: Building with hedgehogs in the multispecies city', in Chattopadhyay S; White J (ed.), The Routledge Companion to Critical Approaches to Contemporary Architecture, Routledge, New York and Oxon, pp. 351 - 362, http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781315688947-27
  • Journal articles | 2023
    McLauchlan L; Kelaita P; Kowalski M; Ritter A, 2023, 'Post-retirement enlightenment syndrome: Worthy of investigation', International Journal of Drug Policy, 117, pp. 104059 - 104059, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2023.104059
    Journal articles | 2023
    Palmer A; McLauchlan L, 2023, 'Landing among the stars: Risks and benefits of Predator Free 2050 and other ambitious conservation targets', Biological Conservation, 284, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2023.110178
    Journal articles | 2023
    Ritter A; McLauchlan L, 2023, 'Citizens’ juries and their role in improved alcohol policy: damp squib, or useful tool?', Drugs: Education, Prevention and Policy, 30, pp. 413 - 424, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09687637.2022.2050185
    Journal articles | 2022
    Barrett L; Mellor R; Ritter A; McLauchlan L; Kearnes M, 2022, 'Navigating the grey: Experiences of incremental cannabis reform in Australia', Drug and Alcohol Review, 41, pp. 1621 - 1629, http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/dar.13518
    Journal articles | 2022
    McLauchlan L; Lancaster K; Kearnes M; Mellor R; Ritter A, 2022, '“It's professional but it's personal”: Participation, personal connection, and sustained disagreement in drug policy reform', International Journal of Drug Policy, 110, pp. 103903 - 103903, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2022.103903
    Journal articles | 2022
    Mellor R; Kearnes M; Lancaster K; McLauchlan L; Ritter A, 2022, 'Established Tables and Emergent Huddles: Exploring the Processes of Participation Associated With the Policy Changes to Opioid Pharmacotherapy Treatment in Australia in the Context of COVID-19', Contemporary Drug Problems, 49, pp. 385 - 404, http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/00914509221123001
    Journal articles | 2022
    Neimanis A; McLauchlan L, 2022, 'Composting (in) the gender studies classroom: Growing feminisms for climate changing pedagogies', Curriculum Inquiry, 52, pp. 218 - 234, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03626784.2022.2041982
    Journal articles | 2019
    McLauchlan L, 2019, 'A Multispecies Collective Planting Trees: Tending to Life and Making Meaning Outside of the Conservation Heroic', Cultural Studies Review, 25, pp. 135 - 153, http://dx.doi.org/10.5130/csr.v24i1.6415
    Journal articles | 2019
    McLauchlan L, 2019, 'A multispecies collective planting trees: Tending to life and making meaning outside of the conservation heroic', Cultural Studies Review, 25, pp. 135 - 153, http://dx.doi.org/10.5130/csr.v24i1.6415
    Journal articles | 2019
    McLauchlan L, 2019, 'Wild Disciplines and Multispecies Erotics: On the Power of Wanting Like a Hedgehog Champion', Australian Feminist Studies, 34, pp. 509 - 523, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08164649.2019.1682457
    Journal articles | 2018
    McLauchlan L, 2018, 'Lively Collaborations: Feminist Reading Group Erotics for Liveable Futures', Transformations: The Journal of Inclusive Scholarship and Pedagogy, 28, pp. 86 - 95, http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/tnf.2018.0005
    Journal articles | 2018
    McLauchlan L, 2018, 'Sadness and the Noir of Urban Hedgehog Conservation', Green Letters, 22, pp. 101 - 112, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14688417.2017.1413991
    Journal articles | 2014
    McLauchlan L; Treadwell S, 2014, 'Earthquake weather and other tentative correspondences', Interstices: Journal of Architecture and Related Arts, http://dx.doi.org/10.24135/ijara.v0i0.474
    Journal articles | 2012
    Shore C; Mclauchlan L, 2012, ''Third mission' activities, commercialisation and academic entrepreneurs', Social Anthropology, 20, pp. 267 - 286, http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-8676.2012.00207.x
    Journal articles | 2012
    Shore C; Mclauchlan L, 2012, 'Universities and the commercial construction of reality: Reply to commentaries', Social Anthropology, 20, pp. 298 - 303, http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-8676.2012.00210.x
    Journal articles | 2012
    Trnka S; McLaughlan L, 2012, 'Becoming 'Half a Doctor': Parent-Experts and the Normalisation of Childhood Asthma in Aotearoa/New Zealand', Sites: a journal of social anthropology and cultural studies, 9, pp. 3 - 22, http://dx.doi.org/10.11157/sites-vol9iss2id208
    Journal articles | 2010
    McLauchlan L; Park J, 2010, '‘Quiet as lambs’: Communicative Action in the New Zealand Parliamentary Debates on Human Assisted Reproductive Technology', Sites: a journal of social anthropology and cultural studies, 7, pp. 101 - 122, http://dx.doi.org/10.11157/sites-vol7iss1id118
  • Reports | 2021
    McLauchlan L, 2021, Bulletin No. 30: Making submissions to government inquiries: DPMP reflections, Social Policy Research Centre, UNSW Sydney, Sydney, http://dx.doi.org/10.26190/y177-jc68
    Reports | 2021
    Mellor R; Kearnes M; Lancaster K; McLauchlan L; Ritter A, 2021, Making policy in emergencies – insights for routine policy making. The case example of opioid pharmacotherapy maintenance, UNSW Social Policy Research Centre, Sydney, DPMP Monograph No. 35, http://dx.doi.org/10.26190/thwy-pq45