Tullio da Silva Maia

Túllio is a post-doc researcher at ANIMAPOLIS, focusing on multispecies methods. With a mixed background in biology, anthropology, and human geography, his current research connects political and more-than-human geography with urban studies, medical anthropology, environmental humanities, science and technology studies (STS), and decolonial studies. Túllio’s postdoctoral research involves developing a dialogue between urban and animal studies, oriented by the techniques and principles of multispecies ethnography. Specifically, he has been developing a methodological toolkit handbook inspired by the practical and theoretical scope of ANIMAPOLIS, focusing on how to research dogs and rats together with humans and other nonhumans in complex urban networks in Amsterdam and Rio de Janeiro.

 

Before rats and dogs, Túllio’s research focused on mosquitoes, his main nonhuman research companions since 2011. His research concentrated on Sergipe, a state in the northeast of Brazil. As a biology student, he developed laboratory research on plant-based repellents and on mosquito populations and community ecology. Pursuing a masters’ degree in anthropology, he developed ethnobiological approach to investigate the relations between artisanal fishermen and mosquitoes, resulting in a more-than-vector perspective on mosquitoes. During his PhD in geography, he focused on different health practices prescribed and performed around mosquito-related diseases, which led him to increasingly understand animals as political actors in and outside cities.

 

His scientific and ethnographic practices in Sergipe have also inspired his teaching, allowing him to add specific texture to scientific, environmental and political discussions with students. They also served as a preparation to explore new animals, such as dogs and rats, and new environments, such as those in Rio de Janeiro and Amsterdam two obvious examples. Parallel to academia, Túllio sings and plays the accordion, keyboard, guitar, and tambourine. Musicality is an important element of the northeast of Brazil, where he is originally from. Music, especially the accordion (traditional in the Brazilian northeast), has been a resource of non-white queer activism exploring north-south political and economic discrepancies within Brazil. Túllio is also inclined to produce dialogue with social movements and traditional communities, paying special attention to their socio-political, ecological and economic demands. This keeps him attuned to the topic of climate justice in the light of global and local inequalities.

 

He seeks to mobilize his academic and artistic skills to bring people together, especially those ones with different backgrounds in knowledge production – including those people outside academia. Networking and building different communities are some of his passions and professional motivations. Organising and attending academic events aimed at producing new institutional imaginations and at promoting an effective integration of more-than-human and non-western-based knowledge have been part of his activities. Finally, Túllio’s main motivation is discussing and performing cultural diversity and bio-diversity as a means to build up and connect transnational more-than-human communities within and beyond academia.