Expertise:

biodiversity conservation; botanic gardens; neoliberalism; whale watching;

Language(s) spoken:

English, Portuguese, German, Spanish

Professional associations:

Lic. BA Honours; MA; PhD

DR. KATJA NEVES is Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. Professor Neves is passionate in her quest to understand the socio-ecological dynamics by means of which we live within our planet’s more than human world. She has recently developed a highly innovative program for the study, enhancement, and support of socio-environmental transdisciplinarity. In the realm of teaching, Katja Neves has worked to decolonize all of her courses, and developed a new graduate level course on the decolonization of university knowledge practices. Theoretically grounded in social studies of science, critical environmental studies, and political ecology, Professor Neves’s research has focused on the reinvention of botanic gardens as significant agents in the governance of biodiversity conservation. Generously financed by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC Canada), this research has resulted in a single authored 2019 book with State University New York Press (SUNY) titled “Postnormal Conservation: Botanic Gardens and the Reordering of Biodiversity Governance” and journal publications. Her earlier work studied the social, political, historical, and cultural ecologies of human relations with whales and dolphins in the Azores, Portugal, vis-à-vis neoliberal co-optations of marine biodiversity conservation. 

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