Salla Tuomivaara is a sociologist (Ph.D.), writer and NGO professional. Tuomivaara defended her doctoral dissertation on history of animals in sociology at the University of Tampere in May 2018. Tuomivaara’s book Animals in the Sociologies of Westermarck and Durkheim, which is based on her doctoral dissertation, was published by Palgrave Macmillan in September 2019.

Tuomivaara currently works as a postdoctoral grant-funded researcher in a project When Man Ceased to Be an Animal – Animal, Animality and Human-Animal Boundary in Sociology and Anthropology Before and After World War II, at the University of Turku.  Her research interests include human–animal dualism, history of social sciences, significance of human–animal boundary, and critical animal studies.

Tuomivaara is a board member of the Network for Critical Animal Studies in Finland. She was also involved in the founding of the Finnish Network for Human–Animal Studies, current Finnish Society for Human–Animal Studies.

Tuomivaara has lived three years in China, two years in Beijing (2011–2013) and one year in Hong Kong (2016). As a high school student she spent one year in Chile, in Laja, as an exchange student.

Tuomivaara’s texts in English:

The lectio praecursoria of Tuomivaara’s doctoral thesis: Searching for the roots of exclusion – how sociological view on animals started to form

Essay Empathy is part of our deepest nature in Museum of Nonhumanity by Gustafsson&Haapoja.

A blog text for Estonian animal rights organization Loomus: China is recovering its animal friendly roots

Salla Tuomivaara and Siri Martinsen: It is time to see through the marketing tactics of the European fur industry: https://www.euractiv.com/section/agriculture-food/opinion/it-is-time-to-see-through-the-marketing-tactics-of-the-european-fur-industry/