Shows
The Animal TurnS8E9: News with Shatabdi Chakrabarti, Jessica Scott-Reid, and Jan DutkiewiczIn this episode we bring together a photojournalist from India, a Canadian columnist, and a political scientist/reporter to discuss animals and the news. We discuss different types of news as well as some of the challenges that come with creating news content that focuses on animals. Date Recorded: 4 June 2025 Featured: How to Spot Misinformation and Bias About Climate and Food in the News by Jessica Scott-ReidMeatsplaining by Jason HannanFeed the People by Jan Dutkiewicz and Gabriel N. RosenbergMother Cow, Mother India by Yamini Narayanan Netflix’s Liver...
2025-12-221h 34
The Animal TurnS8E8: Film and TV with Lynda Korimboccus and Ankita RathourIn this episode Ankita Rathour and Lynda Korimboccus join Claudia to discuss the interconnections of film, tv, and animals. Together they touch on everything from the Peppa Pig paradox in children’s media to the shifting role of animals in Hindi cinema, nationalism and caste politics. Date Recorded: 2 May 2025 Featured: The Subaltern Gazes: Commentary on Amit Masurkar's Sherni by Ankita Rathour.Pig-ignorant: The Peppa Pig Paradox. Investigating Contradictory Childhood Consumption by Lynda M KorimboccusAnimal representation on UK children’s television by Lynda M KorimboccusCan the Subalter...
2025-12-221h 35
Knowing AnimalsEpisode 243: Future animal rights declarations with Doris SchneebergerToday's guest is Dr Doris Schneeberger of the Vienna University of Economics and Business. Doris's academic background is in animal ethics and animal organizational studies. We're discuss her 2024 Palgrave Macmillan book Envisioning a Better Future for Nonhuman Animals: Towards Future Animal Rights Declarations. This is one of the three books shortlisted for the Australasian Animal Studies Association's inaugural Siobhan O'Sullivan Book Prize. (The others are Josh Milburn's Food, Justice, and Animals: Feeding the World Respectfully and Yamini Narayanan's Mother Cow, Mother India: A Multispecies Politics of Dairy in India.) The winner will be announced this month. In h...
2025-11-0331 min
Lantern VoicesExploring Topics in Non/Human Coexistence, Part 2Welcome to part 2 of our discussion with authors and editors of the book Exploring Topics in Non/Human Coexistence. Today we spoke to Amanda Williams, Varun Joshi, and Mark Suchyta about the impacts of borders in the more than human life, Brahminical Vegetarianism, and actions we can take as activists during trying times. If you missed part 1, go check it our in our podcast feed! You can listen to the episodes in any order!Episode links:What Can I Do, by Amanda Williams: https://amzn.to/43jz5pGThe Over Privileged...
2025-06-121h 25
The Deal with Animals with Marika S. Bell117. Can Feminism and Veganism Challenge Patriarchy? A Conversation with Carol J. Adams (S13)Send us a textEpisode 3 of Series 13, Sex and Animals Renowned as a feminist, vegan advocate, and author, Carol J. Adams, brings us into the intricate relationship between these movements in a fascinating conversation that reveals cultural narratives reinforcing gender norms and animal consumption.Guest Bio: Carol J. Adams is a feminist scholar and activist whose work explores the cultural construction of overlapping and interconnected oppressions, as well as the ethics of care. In December 2024, Adams’s iconic The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegan Critical Theory, will appear in...
2025-03-2451 min
The Sandip Roy ShowThe holy cow and the dairy dilemma ft Yamini NarayananFor millions in India, the cow is sacred, and many states have laws prohibiting its slaughter. But this raises a question—what do we do with all these cows? And while India reveres the 'Mother Cow,' does the cow herself want to mother anyone beyond her own calf?In this episode, host Sandip Roy speaks with Yamini Narayanan about her new book, Mother Cow, Mother India. She unpacks the complexities of India’s dairy industry and the uncomfortable truths consumers often ignore.Yamini is a Senior Lecturer in International and Community Development at Deakin University, Aust...
2025-03-0247 min
Engaged Jain Studies PodcastYamini Narayanan | Indian Cow Politics & BeyondIn this episode of the Engaged Jain Studies Podcast, Jonathan Dickstein interviews Yamini Narayanan about her groundbreaking book, Mother Cow, Mother India: A Multispecies Politics of Dairy in India. This conversation, recorded from a live episode event, delves into Narayanan’s shift into animal studies and her extended analysis of Indian bovines.During the discussion, Narayanan unpacks the complex symbolism of the “mother cow” in India, highlighting how it is weaponized against women, Muslims, and Dalits, and how “cow protectionism” serves as a thinly disguised tool of patriarchal ethnonationalism. Most critically, Narayanan draws attention to how mainstream narratives...
2025-02-261h 05
Revise and Resubmit - The Mayukh ShowMother Cow, Mother India (Narayanan, 2023) - Weekend Book ReviewWelcome to Revise and Resubmit, and this is your Weekend Book Review. Today, we’re journeying into a bold and unsettling new perspective on one of India’s most revered symbols—the cow. The book? Mother Cow, Mother India: A Multispecies Politics of Dairy in India by Yamini Narayanan.
Narayanan is no stranger to controversial subjects. As an Associate Professor of International and Community Development at Deakin University in Melbourne, she’s dedicated her career to unraveling the often invisible connections between human and animal exploitation in ideological and political frameworks. She’s also the founding convenor of the Dea...
2024-11-0910 min
The Deal with Animals with Marika S. Bell104. Exploring Hinduism, Dairy & Mother Cow with Yamini Narayanan (Featured Ep.66/S7)Send us a textThe sacred status of the cow is so widespread, so institutionalized, so deeply entrenched in Hindu culture, that it is actually quite a central question about the whole notion of Hinduism identity and cows. - Yamini NarayananEpisode 3 of Series 7: Animals and the Divine TranscriptIn this amazing episode we talk about the place of cows -or more pertinently, dairy - in the Hindu religion. It raises the question: what does it mean to treat an animal as sacred versus treating an animal humanely? Yamini discu...
2024-09-111h 03
Studio PlantaardigEN 🇬🇧 | #72 Holy Cow: de paradox van de Heilige Koe in zuivel- en rundvleesgrootmacht India - Yamini Narayanan, Deakin UniversityJe hebt ze vast wel eens gezien, die foto's van koeien die rustig over Indiase wegen slenteren en zelfs files veroorzaken omdat ze heilig zijn en altijd voor mogen gaan. Maar wat betekent het voor de koe om heilig te zijn? En hoe valt dit te rijmen met het feit dat India de grootste zuivelproducent en de vierde grootste rundvleesproducent ter wereld is?Yamini Narayanan is universitair hoofddocent internationale ontwikkeling aan de Deakin University in Melbourne, Australië. In haar boek Mother Cow, Mother India gaat ze in op deze complexe kwestie. Het geeft inzicht in de rol v...
2024-08-0954 min
Milliarden Stimmen - Der Podcast zur größten Wahl der WeltVerkehrte Welt? Vegetarismus in IndienSonderfolge: Verkehrte Welt? In
Indien sind alle Vegetarier?
In Verkehrte Welt geht Debora für Euch den vielen Vorurteilen auf den
Grund, die sich um Indien ranken. Diese Woche fragt sie, ob sich dort
tatsächlich alle Menschen vegetarisch ernähren.
Bei Fragen, Anregungen oder Kritik: milliarden.stimmen@sai.uni-heidelberg.de
Bei Instagram findet ihr uns hier: Milliarden
Stimmen (@milliarden.stimmen) • Instagram-Fotos und -Videos
Quellen der Folge:
Biswas, Soutik. “The myth of the Indian
vegetarian nation.” BBC, 4 April, 2018. https://www.bbc.com/new...
2024-07-1512 minMilliarden Stimmen - Der Podcast zur größten Wahl der WeltVerkehrte Welt? Die Kuh ist doch in Indien heilig, oder?In Verkehrte Welt geht Deborah für Euch den vielen Vorurteilen auf den Grund, die sich um Indien ranken. Diese Woche fragt sie, was es mit den vielen Kühen in Indien auf sich hat.
Fragen, Anregungen, Feedback: milliarden.stimmen@sai.uni-heidelberg.de
Instagram: @milliarden.stimmen
Quellen:
Alluri, Aparna.”Meat ban: India isn't vegetarian but who'll tell the right-wing?” BBC, April 8, 2022, accessed March 4, 2024. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-61020025.
Ashraf, Ajaz. “History is proof most Hindus never had any beef with beef.” Quartz, March 21, 2015, accessed March 24, 2024. https://qz.com/india/366659/history-says-mosthindus-never-had-any-beef-with-beef.
Daniyal, Shoaib. “At a time of acut...
2024-04-3008 min
New Books in SociologyYamini Narayanan, "Mother Cow, Mother India: A Multispecies Politics of Dairy in India" (Stanford UP, 2023)India imposes stringent criminal penalties, including life imprisonment in some states, for cow slaughter, based on a Hindu ethic of revering the cow as sacred. And yet India is among the world's leading producers of beef, leather, and milk, industries sustained by the mass slaughter of bovines. What is behind this seeming contradiction? What do bovines, deemed holy in Hinduism, experience in the Indian milk and beef industries? Yamini Narayanan asks and answers these questions, introducing cows and buffaloes as key subjects in India's cow protectionism, rather than their treatment hitherto as mere objects of political analysis. Emphasizing human–an...
2024-02-111h 17
New Books in South Asian StudiesYamini Narayanan, "Mother Cow, Mother India: A Multispecies Politics of Dairy in India" (Stanford UP, 2023)India imposes stringent criminal penalties, including life imprisonment in some states, for cow slaughter, based on a Hindu ethic of revering the cow as sacred. And yet India is among the world's leading producers of beef, leather, and milk, industries sustained by the mass slaughter of bovines. What is behind this seeming contradiction? What do bovines, deemed holy in Hinduism, experience in the Indian milk and beef industries? Yamini Narayanan asks and answers these questions, introducing cows and buffaloes as key subjects in India's cow protectionism, rather than their treatment hitherto as mere objects of political analysis. Emphasizing human–an...
2024-02-111h 17
NBN Book of the DayYamini Narayanan, "Mother Cow, Mother India: A Multispecies Politics of Dairy in India" (Stanford UP, 2023)India imposes stringent criminal penalties, including life imprisonment in some states, for cow slaughter, based on a Hindu ethic of revering the cow as sacred. And yet India is among the world's leading producers of beef, leather, and milk, industries sustained by the mass slaughter of bovines. What is behind this seeming contradiction? What do bovines, deemed holy in Hinduism, experience in the Indian milk and beef industries? Yamini Narayanan asks and answers these questions, introducing cows and buffaloes as key subjects in India's cow protectionism, rather than their treatment hitherto as mere objects of political analysis. Emphasizing human–an...
2024-02-111h 17
New Books in FoodYamini Narayanan, "Mother Cow, Mother India: A Multispecies Politics of Dairy in India" (Stanford UP, 2023)India imposes stringent criminal penalties, including life imprisonment in some states, for cow slaughter, based on a Hindu ethic of revering the cow as sacred. And yet India is among the world's leading producers of beef, leather, and milk, industries sustained by the mass slaughter of bovines. What is behind this seeming contradiction? What do bovines, deemed holy in Hinduism, experience in the Indian milk and beef industries? Yamini Narayanan asks and answers these questions, introducing cows and buffaloes as key subjects in India's cow protectionism, rather than their treatment hitherto as mere objects of political analysis. Emphasizing human–an...
2024-02-111h 17
New Books in Animal StudiesYamini Narayanan, "Mother Cow, Mother India: A Multispecies Politics of Dairy in India" (Stanford UP, 2023)India imposes stringent criminal penalties, including life imprisonment in some states, for cow slaughter, based on a Hindu ethic of revering the cow as sacred. And yet India is among the world's leading producers of beef, leather, and milk, industries sustained by the mass slaughter of bovines. What is behind this seeming contradiction? What do bovines, deemed holy in Hinduism, experience in the Indian milk and beef industries? Yamini Narayanan asks and answers these questions, introducing cows and buffaloes as key subjects in India's cow protectionism, rather than their treatment hitherto as mere objects of political analysis. Emphasizing human–an...
2024-02-111h 17
New Books in Indian ReligionsYamini Narayanan, "Mother Cow, Mother India: A Multispecies Politics of Dairy in India" (Stanford UP, 2023)India imposes stringent criminal penalties, including life imprisonment in some states, for cow slaughter, based on a Hindu ethic of revering the cow as sacred. And yet India is among the world's leading producers of beef, leather, and milk, industries sustained by the mass slaughter of bovines. What is behind this seeming contradiction? What do bovines, deemed holy in Hinduism, experience in the Indian milk and beef industries? Yamini Narayanan asks and answers these questions, introducing cows and buffaloes as key subjects in India's cow protectionism, rather than their treatment hitherto as mere objects of political analysis. Emphasizing human–an...
2024-02-111h 17
New Books in AnthropologyYamini Narayanan, "Mother Cow, Mother India: A Multispecies Politics of Dairy in India" (Stanford UP, 2023)India imposes stringent criminal penalties, including life imprisonment in some states, for cow slaughter, based on a Hindu ethic of revering the cow as sacred. And yet India is among the world's leading producers of beef, leather, and milk, industries sustained by the mass slaughter of bovines. What is behind this seeming contradiction? What do bovines, deemed holy in Hinduism, experience in the Indian milk and beef industries? Yamini Narayanan asks and answers these questions, introducing cows and buffaloes as key subjects in India's cow protectionism, rather than their treatment hitherto as mere objects of political analysis. Emphasizing human–an...
2024-02-111h 17
Sentientism160: "Mother Cow, Mother India" - Yamini Narayanan - International Development A/Prof - SentientismYamini is Senior Lecturer in International and Community Development at Deakin University. Her work makes substantive contributions to the rapidly emergent field of South Asian Animal Studies through a twin focus on animals in political and urban life in India. It addresses species as an explicit identity category in Indian national politics through the intersections of #anthropocentrism, #sectarianism, and #casteism. Her book Mother Cow, Mother India offers one of the first empirical critiques of India’s cow protectionism discourse and politics from a #criticalanimalstudies standpoint. Yamini publishes widely in media on issues related to animal rights, including the Animal Li...
2024-01-081h 39
The Animal TurnNews: The Animal Turn Shortlisted in the International Women's Podcasting AwardsThe Animal Turn has been shortlisted in two categories of the upcoming International Women's Awards to be held on the 6th of November 2023. You can hear the nominated clips in this episode. The Animal Turn was shortlisted in "Moment of Insight from a Role Model" for the conversation between Jeff Sebo and Claudia Hirtenfelder about the im/possibility of change in human-animal relations. It was also shortlisted in "Changing the World One Moment at a Time" for the conversation with Yamini Narayanan in which he outlines how devastating sacralisation is for women, children, and animals...
2023-10-2024 min
The Animal TurnBonus: Mother with Yamini NarayananYamini Narayanan is back on the show, this time to talk to Claudia about her book Mother Cow, Mother India. They focus their discussion on the concept of “Mother” and what it means for cows in India. They touch on the implications of cows being sacralised as mothers of the Hindu nation and what cows’ daily lives, as mothers, are like. Date Recorded: 25 April 2023. Yamini Narayanan is an Associate Professor of International and Community Development at Deakin University, Melbourne. Her new book Mother Cow, Mother India explores the nexus...
2023-06-141h 06
The Animal TurnS3E6: Informality with Yamini NarayananClaudia talks to Yamini Narayanan about the concept of informality and how it can be used to unpack, complicate and understand urban-animal relations. With a focus on urban-cow entanglements, they discuss how informality is related to urban infrastructure and mobilities that help to bur some of the often dichotomous ways we’ve come to understand not only intra-human relations, but inter-species relations too. Date recorded: 28 April 2021Yamini Narayanan is Senior Lecturer in International and Community Development at Deakin University, Melbourne. Her work explores the ways in which (other) animals are instrumentalised in sectarian, ca...
2021-06-231h 25
The Animal TurnS3E1: Right to the City with Marie Carmen ShingneIn this episode Claudia speaks to Marie Carmen Shingne about the concept ‘Right to the City’ and how it could be applied to animals. They open up this season, focusing on animals and the urban, by asking whether animals have any claims to the city. Date recorded: 1 March 2021 Marie Carmen Shingne is a doctoral candidate in the Sociology Department at Michigan State University with specializations in animal studies and global urban studies. Her dissertation research is focused on the experiences of the slum residents and street dogs in the...
2021-04-051h 07
Point of OriginThe Morality of MeatWhat does it mean to eat meat in 2020? What it means to consuming it, to abstain from it and how, as always on matters of so called morality are murky, and impossible to detangle from the influence of culture, society, and privilege.To lead the conversation we're joined with writer Alicia Kennedy, one of the clearest and most compelling voices in food media today on, among other things, veganism, and more broadly the politics of eating. We then travel to India where we’re Dr. Yamini Narayanan discusses the politicization of beef in India, and in particular, wh...
2020-11-1843 min
Freedom of SpeciesICAS 2017 - Dr Yamini Narayanan2017 ICAS OCEANIA CONFERENCE - Forging Alliances and Intersections Dr Yamini Narayanan on Cow Protectionism And Indian Animal AdvocacyAudio provided by Progressive Podcast Australia https://progressivepodcastaustralia.com/Dr Yamini Narayanan is an ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) Senior Fellow at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation.Her work explores the notion that that religion influences urban development in India, and must inform policy. India's scale and speed of urbanisation makes its sustainable urban development critical globally, yet modernist urban planning has failed to address slum growth, poverty, gender inequality and ecological crises.More recently, her research has be...
2017-07-3000 min
Global PoliticsSelling India's Sacred CowThe cow is a sacred animal in India with nearly 80% of its Hindu population abstaining from eating beef and worshiping the animal for its production of milk. Surprisingly enough, the country has become the world's largest exporter of beef products, exporting more than 2 million tonnes a year and consuming just as much.
Why is India selling the sacred cow? Dr Yamini Narayanan (DECRA Senior Fellow at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation at Deakin University) talks to Matt Smith about this clash of ideals which have become a topic of controversy, corruption and murder in...
2016-11-0719 min
Asia RisingSelling India's Sacred CowThe cow is a sacred animal in India with nearly 80% of its Hindu population abstaining from eating beef and worshiping the animal for its production of milk. Surprisingly enough, the country has become the world's largest exporter of beef products, exporting more than 2 million tonnes a year and consuming just as much.
Why is India selling the sacred cow? Dr Yamini Narayanan (DECRA Senior Fellow at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation at Deakin University) talks to Matt Smith about this clash of ideals which have become a topic of controversy, corruption and murder in...
2016-09-2719 minAsia Rising#50 Selling India's Sacred CowThe cow is a sacred animal in India with nearly 80% of its Hindu population abstaining from eating beef and worshiping the animal for its production of milk. Surprisingly enough, the country has become the world's largest exporter of beef products, exporting more than 2 million tonnes a year and consuming just as much.
Why is India selling the sacred cow? Dr Yamini Narayanan (DECRA Senior Fellow at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation at Deakin University) talks to Matt Smith about this clash of ideals which have become a topic of controversy, corruption and murder in...
2016-09-2700 min
Asia RisingSelling India's Sacred CowThe cow is a sacred animal in India with nearly 80% of its Hindu population abstaining from eating beef and worshiping the animal for its production of milk. Surprisingly enough, the country has become the world's largest exporter of beef products, exporting more than 2 million tonnes a year and consuming just as much.
Why is India selling the sacred cow? Dr Yamini Narayanan (DECRA Senior Fellow at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation at Deakin University) talks to Matt Smith about this clash of ideals which have become a topic of controversy, corruption and murder in India.
Yamini Narayanan...
2016-09-2719 minGlobal PoliticsCan India Reach its Potential?India is a country with a challenging future. It’s the home of 1.3 billion people and it will be the world’s most populated country within the next decade. It has high levels of unemployment, and widespread problems with inequality, pollution and sanitation. But with a youthful population and an increasingly educated workforce it’s a challenge it could meet.
In this public forum three experts give their views on different aspects of India's development.
- Professor Ian Hall (Government and International Relations, Griffith University)
- Dr Yamini Narayanan (Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Gl...
2016-09-021h 22Asia RisingCan India Reach its Potential?India is a country with a challenging future. It’s the home of 1.3 billion people and it will be the world’s most populated country within the next decade. It has high levels of unemployment, and widespread problems with inequality, pollution and sanitation. But with a youthful population and an increasingly educated workforce it’s a challenge it could meet.
In this public forum three experts give their views on different aspects of India's development.
- Professor Ian Hall (Government and International Relations, Griffith University)
- Dr Yamini Narayanan (Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University)
- Dr Ian Wo...
2016-08-311h 22
Freedom of SpeciesThe un / holy cows of India - Dr Yamini NarayananHow can a Hindu-majority country that recognises cows as sacred also be a major global producer of beef, leather and milk?Dr Yamini Narayanan shares her research into this most perplexing contradiction.Dr Yamini Narayanan is a Research Fellow at Deakin University's Australian Research Council. Her research explores trans-species feminist urban planning - examining the significant and yet invisible role of animals in city building, and the complicity of urban religion in enabling animal exploitation for urban development.Her book Religion, Heritage and the Sustainable City: Hinduism and Urbanisation in Jaipur (Routledge) was published in 2015.
2015-10-0400 min