Hibba Mazhary

Distancing death: welfare, slaughter and consumption in the British halal meat industry

Hibba Mazhary is a part-time PhD student in Geography at the School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford. Hibba first entered the department as a BA Geography undergraduate in 2013, before going on to complete the MSc in Nature, Society and Environmental Governance. She divides her time between fieldwork, teaching undergraduates, and undertaking various part-time research assistant roles, including a project on parenting and the gut microbiome, one on meat normalisation media narratives, and one with the RSPCA on laboratory rat welfare. Hibba is broadly interested in animal welfare and food sustainability.

• 2019-21 St Catherine’s College Berlinski-Jacobson Scholarship
• 2016-17 School of Geography and the Environment Nature Society and Environmental Governance Award
• 2016-17 Aziz Foundation Public Policy Scheme Scholarship

Hibba is currently undertaking a part-time PhD on the geographies of slaughter and consumption in the British halal meat industry, focusing on religious dietary codes, consumer motivations, certification, and the relationship between meat consumption and exposure to animal death.

Hibba assists with human geography teaching at St Catherine's College, which involves delivering a mixture of classes, seminars and dissertation supervision. She has also previously taught on departmental Option courses such as ‘Geographies of Nature’ and ‘Geopolitics in the Margins’.

Journal Articles

• Mazhary, H. (forthcoming) Reconnecting life and death in the British alternative halal meat movement. Chapter 8 in, Hansen, A. and Syse, K.L. (eds.) Changing Meat Cultures: Food Practices, Global Capitalism and the Consumption of Animals. Rowman and Littlefield.
• Mazhary, H. (2021) Distancing animal death: Geographies of killing and making killable. Geography Compass. e12582.
• Mazhary, H. and Hawkins, P. (2019) Applying the 3Rs: A Case Study on Evidence and Perceptions Relating to Rat Cage Height in the UK. Animals, 9(12). 1104.

Conference Papers

• Mazhary, H. (2021) Slaughter and consumption in the British halal meat industry. RGS-IBG Annual International Conference 2021 (Royal Geographical Society).
• Mazhary, H. and Hawkins, P. (2019) Applying the 3Rs: A Case Study on Evidence and Perceptions Relating to Rat Cage Height in the UK. Laboratory Animal Science Association Annual Conference 2019.
• Mazhary, H. (2018) Distancing death: welfare and slaughter in the British halal meat industry. POLLEN18 (Political Ecology Network).
• Mazhary, H. (2018) Distancing death: welfare and slaughter in the British halal meat industry. RGS-IBG Midterm Conference 2018 (Royal Geographical Society).

Research Poster

• 2018. Distancing animal death: welfare, sustainability and slaughter in the British halal meat industry. Future of Meat and Dairy Conference 2018, Livestock, Environment and People (LEAP).

Blog Posts

• 2021. On flesh and the spirit - understanding British Muslims' meat consumption, Table.
• 2019. Distancing death: slaughter, welfare and consumption in the British halal meat industry, Table.
• 2018. Reflections from the Postgraduate Midterm Conference 2018, Social and Cultural Geography Research Group.
• 2017. Adventures in Amsterdam: angry cyclists, vertical gardens and fieldwork reflections, Out and About: The SoGE Field Trip Blog.