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About

Katy Wilkinson is a scholar whose research sits at the intersection of human-animal studies, agricultural technology, and multispecies ethnography, with a particular focus on the transforming landscapes of modern dairy farming. Her most influential work examines how the introduction of robotic milking technologies reshapes relationships between farmers, cows, and automated systems, probing questions of freedom, control, and ethics within UK dairy environments. Her 2013 papers — one accumulating 102 citations and another 74 — established her as a significant voice in understanding how robot-cow-human dynamics challenge conventional assumptions about agricultural labor and animal agency. Wilkinson has also made a methodological contribution to the field, arguing in her 2016 paper (62 citations) that visual ethnography offers a powerful, less anthropocentric lens for studying human-nonhuman relations — a timely intervention given that method in animal studies has historically lagged behind theoretical development. Her sustained engagement with how technology mediates our ethical obligations to animals makes her work essential reading for researchers in science and technology studies, animal geography, and multispecies scholarship. Her scholarship encourages both students and practitioners to reconsider what fairness and care might look like on the increasingly automated farm.