Philosophy in the Wild – Finding Hope in Mixed Communities was a global Women In Parenthesis public philosophy project which built on the success of Notes from a Biscuit Tin. It was curated by philosopher-poet Mara-Daria Cojocaru.

Between April 2025 and April 2026, an anthrozoological vasculum, symbolising Mary Midgley’s biscuit tin, sparked philosophical conversations and collected field notes and multispecies poetry from 12 global sites. Explore the places and conversations that were at the heart of the project and dive into the rich, ambitious and inspiring work that has emerged from our activities below.

Philosophy in the Wild examined the concept of the ‘mixed community’ in a series of concrete settings. The concept was coined in 1983 by the philosopher Mary Midgley to underline the fact that humans have never lived apart from other animals. She used it to emphasise the idea that we, humans, are one animal-species among others, and that the structures of human life are interwoven with those of the other animals among whom we live. For Midgley, wild living animals are not excluded from membership of a mixed community. Today, at a time when the biomass of the land-based mammals is 96% constituted by humans and the domesticated animals they control, we followed Midgley and explored ways to transform multi-species communities so that they benefit all members. We wanted to know what mixed communities in which wild animals thrive alongside humans actually look like, how we can realise more of them, and whether they can be sources of hope.

By adopting a range of creative research methods and facilitating the creation of multi-species poetry we also raised questions about the possibilities for human-animal "con-versation" and creative collaboration. Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman have argued that human animals are ‘metaphysical’ by nature. Drawing on Midgley’s reflections on the importance of poetry to human life, they have proposed that an instinct for poetry and novelty is one way in which our nature as metaphysical animals is expressed. Working with a host of very different species, all with their own Umwelten, provoked important questions about the ways in which this instinct might be shared with and communicated to other kinds of animals, the role of poetry in creating communities and in contributing to scientific practice.