Christopher Bear
Papers
9
Total Citations
458
H-Index
7
About
Christopher Bear is a human geographer whose research sits at the cutting edge of more-than-human studies, agricultural technology, and animal-human relations. Best known for his sustained engagement with robotic milking systems on UK dairy farms, Bear has fundamentally reshaped how scholars understand the entanglements between animals, humans, and emerging technologies in agricultural settings. His influential 2013 papers on robot-cow relationships and situated ethical frameworks (collectively accumulating over 170 citations) established him as a leading voice in examining how automation restructures both bovine agency and human labor. His 2019 piece on "divergent more-than-human conduct" (109 citations) pushed the field further by moving beyond simplistic narratives of resistance to capture the nuanced, unpredictable ways cows and machines co-constitute farm life. Bear has also been a methodological innovator: his 2016 work on visualizing human-animal-technology relations (62 citations) argues persuasively for less anthropocentric approaches, including visual ethnography, to study nonhuman participants. Spanning over a decade of scholarship, his body of work challenges researchers across geography, animal studies, and science and technology studies to take seriously the subjectivities of both animals and the machines that increasingly govern their lives.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
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- 4Visualizing Human-Animal-Technology Relations62 citations · 2016
- 5The impact of technological change in dairy farming: robotic milking systems and the changing role of the stockperson62 citations · 2012
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- 9Robotic and Information Technologies in UK Dairy Farming2 citations · 2012