Eline D. Tabak

I’m a postdoctoral researcher in the environmental humanities and critical extinction studies. In my research I look at biodiversity (loss) from a humanities and social sciences perspective. Broadly speaking, I am interested in why people care more about certain species (plants and animals) than others and are willing to share their stories, save them, or care in other ways. My current postdoctoral project, ‘Tending to small life’, at the University of Oulu (FI) looks at practices and imaginaries of gathering, archiving and the sharing of seeds as a means of safeguarding biodiversity and preventing plant species loss.

My doctoral research at the Universities of Bristol and Bath Spa was on narratives of insect decline. In my thesis, titled ‘Storying Extinction: Cultural Imaginations of Insect Decline’, I considered questions of value, care, and (in)attention in an age of extinction. Find my publications based on this work and more here. More generally I am interested in education and sustainability, biocultural heritage, tasty plant-based food, and conservation.