Kendra Coulter

Kendra Coulter (born 1979) is a Canadian labour studies scholar with a background in anthropology who is currently an associate professor at the Centre for Labour Studies at Brock University. She is the author of Revolutionizing Retail: Workers, Political Action, and Social Change (2014) and Animals, Work, & the Promise of Interspecies Solidarity (2016).

Coulter was trained as an anthropologist, studying at the University of Western Ontario, from which she graduated with a BA in 2002, and the University of Toronto. Her doctoral thesis, Chameleons, Chimeras and Shape-Shifters: The Production of Neoliberal Government in Ontario, was successfully defended at Toronto in May 2007. After graduation, she worked for a time in Sociology & Anthropology at the University of Windsor. She then went on to Centre for Labour Studies, Brock University, where she is currently an associate professor.

Coulter's first monograph, Revolutionizing Retail: Workers, Political Action, and Social Change was published in 2014 by Palgrave Macmillan. The book explores the retail sector, examining how the lives of workers in the industry can be transformed. She first examines the nature of retail work, and then looks to the successes and promise of retail unions in changing workers' lives and situations. Coulter then considers retail more broadly, examining a range of possible avenues for political change. Amanda Pyman, who reviewed the book for Times Higher Education, said that it was "Essential reading for all employment relations scholars ... Coulter should be commended for this valuable contribution to what is still, despite the prominence of retail in global economies, an understudied sector. In the process, she offers a valuable reminder of the importance of workers' struggles in organising for social change." Revolutionising Retail was awarded the 2015 Canadian Association for Work and Labour Studies book prize.

In her second monograph, 2016's Animals, Work, & the Promise of Interspecies Solidarity, Coulter examines the work people do with animals as well as the work done by animals, drawing upon a range of theoretical perspectives including feminist political economy. In both labour studies and human-animal studies, Coulter argues, the work done by and for animals has been underexplored. Coulter not only explores these topics, arguing that animals' work should be recognised as such, but critically engages with them, offering alternative ways to conceptualise the place of animals in the workplace and society, with a focus on improving lives and alleviating suffering. She calls for an interspecies solidarity, and the development of humane jobs. On the website of her Humane Jobs project, Coulter writes that "There are compelling ethical and environmental reasons to move the workforce away from damaging patterns and towards more sustainable and positive practices and employment sectors. We can and should create humane jobs."

• Coulter, Kendra and William R. Schumann, eds. (2012). Governing Cultures: Anthropological Perspectives on Political Labor, Power, and Government. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Coulter, Kendra (2014). Revolutionizing Retail: Workers, Political Action, and Social Change. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Coulter, Kendra (2016). Animals, Work, & the Promise of Interspecies Solidarity. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.