Over the last few years, research master students involved with the project have visited different zoos in the Netherlands and written about their experiences. Following Clifford Geertz’ concept of “thick description” the students have produced elaborate essays analyzing the various human-animal interactions happening in the zoo.

2017 – Blijdorp Rotterdam

• The Disconnect Between Education and Entertainment at Blijdorp Zoo by Lauren Hoogen Stoevenbeld
• The Visibility of Animals in Zoos by Melissa Geerars
• ‘Special Encounters’: A Thick Description of Blijdorp by Leonie Brasser
• The Conflict of Dividing Attention between the Individual Animal and the Global Process of Climate Change at Rotterdam Zoo by Vincent Reijnders

2018 – ARTIS Amsterdam Royal Zoo

• Why Smell the Zoo? by Chihhen Chang
• Unrelating at Artis by Roos Brands
• A Visit to Artis: Some Notes by Tess Post
• Zoochosis by Eamonn Connor

2019 – Ouwehands Dierenpark Rhenen

• Pandasia and China’s Panda Diplomacy by Marrit Meinema
• Breakfast with the Bears: Three Bear-ish Encounters by Karlijn Herforth

2020 – [COVID19 lockdown]

• Streaming the Animal: Privacy and Visibility in the San Diego Zoo by Pauw Vos
• The Care of Culling Zoo Animals, and How It Can Open up New Speculative Futures of Care by Maico Mariën
• Wild Animals in (Im)Proper Places in the Heterotopic Zoo by Fenna Veenstra

2021 – [COVID19 lockdown]

• Entertainment, Education, Extinction: Understanding the Modern Zoo through ZooTycoon 2 by Sanne Teune
• One Man’s Meat is Another Man’s Poison: Meat, Feeding and Animal Subjectivity in Zoological Gardens by Kees Müller
• The Potential for True Encounter: The Legacy of Bokito’s Escape by Merel Hol
• Surveilling Nature: Getting Lost on Explore.org by Natalia Hernández Somarriba

2022 – Burger’s Zoo, Arnhem

• Burger’s Zoo and the Illusion of Visibility by Luna Njoku Dominguez
• Ecodisplays at Royal Burgers’ Zoo: Animal or Human Paradise? by Nienke Veenstra
• Along Phenomenological Parameters in the Aquaria of Zoological Gardens by Luka Hattuma