Michael researches in the broad field of animal history but focusses on centering animals and including their subjective experiences. His primary research interests are cattle history, southern African history, colonial history, animal sentience, mind and eudaimonia-based conceptions of agency, and experiential and emotional histories. His PhD thesis was conferred via cotutelle through Leiden University and the University of the Free State in 2021, and was entitled 'Cattle and colonialism: an animal-centred history of southern Africa 1652 to 1980s'. He has published internationally in open pedagogies, economic history, animal history, decoloniality theory, and ethics. Michael is a lifetime Associate Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics. He is co-editing a book on animal history with Dr Les Mitchell.
