This month we have a deeply interesting conversation with social anthropologist, Dr. Avi KBH, who is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the project Animal Crosslocations, which is resourced through the Resilient and Just Systems (RESET) Network at University of Helsinki. We talked about his new project, “Mosquito Crosslocations and Participatory Evaluations of Mosquito Interventions,” and the trajectory that led him to be interested in these topics. In this conversation we think through the complex web of relationships inherent to multispecies interactions. In particular, he highlighted some of the compelling reasons why we need to shift some of our narratives related to the myriad beings we humans characterize as “pests”. Pests is in quotes because using this language casually brings its own sometimes (often) misguided perceptions and assumptions about the role the being in question plays within the wider web of life.

If you would like to engage with Avi and learn more about the Animal Cross locations project, please visit his blog - https://blogs.helsinki.fi/avibetzh/