Melvin Chan
Melvin Chan is a doctoral candidate at York University, Toronto, Canada. He was given a CAF grant for his project “Rescuing Rabbits: An Institutional Etho-Ethnography of Rabbit Welfare and Advocacy in British Columbia.” The project explores the dynamics of domesticated (European) rabbit welfare and advocacy in British Columbia, Canada, in order to identify possible interventions for improvement.
Despite occupying a number of social roles, rabbits’ welfare is often overlooked because of their perceived disposability and lesser sentience. Through the integrated use of feminist multispecies, affective, and decolonial frameworks, the project seeks to challenge anthropocentric and colonial views of human–rabbit relationships and move beyond these perspectives by attending to rabbits’ experiences, behaviors, and affective processes to offer insight into how we can create multispecies communities where rabbits are active participants.
Melvin shares an animal welfare research interest with Jes Hooper, whose research is dedicated to raising awareness about civet welfare and exploitation. Jes’ research led to the formation of The Civet Project, and was awarded a CAF grant for the creation of the documentary film, Civet Coffee: From Rare to Reckless. Likewise, Alfred Ntando Sihwa’s work explores how modern laws and traditional practices affect animal welfare in Zimbabwe.