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Alice J. Hovorka

Alice J. Hovorka

Dean & Professor

Credentials

PhD in Geography, Clark University
MA in Geography, Carleton University
BA Honours, Queen's University

Research Keywords

Human-Environment Geographies; Animal Geographies; Gender & Environment; Urban Geography; Southern Africa.

Alice

Contact Information

4700 Keele Street
Toronto, ON M3J 1P3

416 736 2100

ahovorka@yorku.ca 

https://livesofanimals.info.yorku.ca/

Research Interests

My research program broadly explores human-environment relations and is theoretically informed by feminist, poststructuralist and posthumanist philosophical perspectives. I focus on three areas:

The Lives of Animals

My current research focuses on animals, reflecting my theoretical and empirical interest in species relations of power. We cannot understand human affairs without recognizing the ways in which animals are wrapped up with social constructions, organizations and dynamics, and biophysical processes. How do we think about animals? Where do we put them? Where do they belong? How do we interact with them? Are these human-animal relations good, bad, otherwise? How might we understand the lives of animals in terms of their circumstances and experiences, welfare and rights so as to achieve sustainable and just interspecies relations? This work takes place primarily in Botswana, Canada and Costa Rica.

Urbanization, Gender & Everyday Life

I have long been interested in contemporary urban life in Southern Africa, particularly as shaped by gender relations of power. Urbanization is a key driver of change in this region where the lives and circumstances of people have undergone rapid transformation within the past generation. In this context I have explored issues related to housing, urban agriculture, food security, natural resource use, entrepreneurship, identity politics and animals, primarily in Gaborone, Botswana.

Scholarship of Teaching & Learning / Scholarship of Academic Leadership

My academic experiences to date have stimulated my interest in the scholarship of higher education. Specifically, I am interested in the scholarship of teaching and learning and have published on pedagogical issues related to experiential learning, reflective practice, classroom participation, as well as investigations in geographical and environmental education fields. I am also interested in the scholarship of academic leadership, given my roles and experiences as Head of Department and Faculty Dean; I have begun thinking and writing on administrative issues related to care-based and place-based leadership.

Research Projects

SSHRC Insight Grant, 2016-2023. Animal governance in Botswana and Canada.

SSHRC Insight Grant, 2012-2016. The lives of animals in Botswana.

Research Output

The Lives of Animals

Hovorka, Alice, Sandra McCubbin and Lauren Van Patter, eds. 2021. A Research Agenda for Animal Geographies. UK: Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd.

Hovorka, Alice. 2018. Animal geographies III: species relations of power. Progress in Human Geography. 43(4):749-757; Hovorka, Alice. 2017. Animal geographies II: hybridizing. Progress in Human Geography. 42(3):453-462; Hovorka, Alice. 2016. Animal geographies I: globalizing and decolonizing. Progress in Human Geography. 41(3):382-394.

Geiger, Martha and Alice J. Hovorka. 2015. Animal performativity: exploring donkey lives in Botswana. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 33(5):1098-1117.

Hovorka, Alice J. 2015. The Gender, Place and Culture Jan Monk Distinguished Annual Lecture: Feminism and animals: exploring interspecies relations through intersectionality, performativity and standpoint. Gender, Place & Culture 22(1): 1-19.

Hovorka, Alice J. 2012. Women/chickens v. men/cattle: insights on gender-species intersectionality. Geoforum 43(4): 875-884.

Bolla, Andrea and Alice J. Hovorka. 2012. Placing wild animals in Botswana: engaging geography’s transspecies spatial theory. Humanimalia 3(2):56-82

Hovorka, Alice J. 2008. Transspecies urban theory: chickens in an African city. Cultural Geographies 15(1):95-117.

See additional publications at https://livesofanimals.info.yorku.ca/dissemination/

Urbanization, Gender & Everyday Life

Hovorka, Alice. 2022. Chapter 11: Exploring urban foodscapes via feminist political ecology. Routledge Handbook of Urban Food Governance. London: Routledge. 152-163.

Hovorka, Alice, Henk de Zeeuw, and Mary Njenga, eds. 2009. Women Feeding Cities: Gender Mainstreaming in Urban Agriculture and Food Security. United Kingdom: Practical Action Publishing c/o Portland Press.

Hovorka, Alice J. 2006. Urban agriculture: addressing practical and strategic gender needs. Development in Practice 16(2): 51-61.

Hovorka, Alice J. 2006. The No.1 Ladies’ Poultry Farm: A Feminist Political Ecology of Urban Agriculture in Botswana.  Gender, Place and Culture 13(3): 207-225.

Hovorka, Alice J. 2005. The (re)production of gendered positionality in Botswana's commercial urban agriculture sector. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 95(2):294-313.

Hovorka, Alice J. 2004.  Entrepreneurial opportunities in Botswana: (re)shaping urban agriculture discourse. Journal of Contemporary African Studies 22(3):367-388.

Hovorka, Alice J. 2004. Commercial urban agriculture in Greater Gaborone: form & function, challenges & prospects. Pula: Botswana Journal of African Studies 18(3):80-94.

Scholarship of Teaching & Learning / Scholarship of Academic Leadership

Deena Kara Shaffer and Alice Hovorka. 2024. Expansive education leadership: two viewpoints on learning, and leaning into, spacious leading. In Narrelle Lemon, ed. Doing Things Differently: Raising Awareness of Wellbeing and Selfcare as a Priority in Higher Education. London: Routledge. 225-237

Graham, Peter, Cassandra Kuyvenhoven, Rena Upitis, Adeela Arshad-Ayaz, Eli Scheinman, Colin Khan, Allison Goebel, R. Stephen Brown, and Alice Hovorka. 2021. The Emotional Experience of Sustainability Courses: Learned Eco-Anxiety, Potential Ontological Adjustment. Journal of Education for Sustainable Development. DOI 0973408220981163.

Hovorka, Alice. 2019. Teaching the animal in higher education: interdisciplinary experiential learning. Society and Animals. 1-18.

Hovorka, Alice and Peter Wolf. 2019. Chapter 28: Capstones in geography. In Helen Walkington, Jennifer Hill, and Sarah Dyer, eds. Handbook of Learning and Teaching in Geography. Cheltenham UK: Edward Elgar Publishing. 386-398.

Hovorka, Alice J. 2013. Assessing student participation: a rubric for holistic student-informed assessment. Teaching and Learning Innovations Journal 16:1-12.

Hovorka, Alice J. 2009. A capstone course of “geographic ideas”. The Journal of Geography 108(6):252-258.

Hovorka, Alice J. and Peter A. Wolf. 2009. Activating the classroom: geographical fieldwork as pedagogical practice. Journal for Higher Education in Geography 33(1):89-102.