The ANU Centre for Environmental History was delighted to host Professor Sandra Swart (Stellenbosch University), who presented this year’s Robin-Griffiths Environmental History Lecture. Her lecture, titled ‘Kinship: How to live in a more-than-human world’, explored the deep connections between people and animals, drawing on examples from her research in southern Africa. A captivating story-teller, Professor Swart revealed how historicising elephants, and human-wildlife relations more broadly, is vital to understanding changing animal cultures and their futures.

Vice-President of the European Society for Environmental History, Professor Swart is an internationally-renowned environmental historian of Southern Africa. The author of Riding High: Horses, humans and history in South Africa (2010) and co-editor of The Routledge Handbook of Environmental History (2024), Canis Africanis: A dog history of southern Africa (2008), and Breeds of Empire: The ‘invention’ of the horse in the Philippines and southern Africa, 1500-1950 (2007), her latest book is The Lion’s Historian: Africa’s Animal Past (Jacana, 2023).

Established in 2022 thanks to a generous donor, the Robin-Griffiths Environmental History Lecture celebrates the immense contributions of the Centre’s founders, Professor Emerita Libby Robin and Emeritus Professor Tom Griffiths AO. Professor Swart’s visit to the ANU was kindly sponsored by the RSSS Visitors Scheme; the Centre wishes to thank the RSSS Admin team for their support during her visit.