Animals and the city Flashcards
Fielding (1962)
The removal of animals from the city is embedded in urban politics of the 19th century.
During this time there was a rapid removal of animals from the city (especially livestock in cities like London and NYC). This was prompted by the belief that to have a truly progressive society, a control over nature was required. The presence of animals in the city became framed as a violation of human space.
The movement of these species into the rural was a key mode of power and control- this has shaped how the city has developed and is understood.
Braverman (2012)
The process of removing animals from the city has led to the understanding that cities are spaces of complete human control. The essence of the modern city has been to control the ‘wild’ within it.
As a consequence, intense laws and regulations have emerged concerned with the mobility of different species. This has resulted in a ‘natural’ way of thinking about what and where animals belong.
Anderson (1995)
Alongside the removed of nature from the city, there was a rise in institutionalised nature in the form of zoos. This was a way of bringing a slice of the wild into the urban. presenting the city as a highly connected and metropolitan space.
However, this form of nature is highly regulated and controlled. This is an eradication of ‘unruly’ nature and making place for ‘tame’ nature.
Anderson critiques Adelaide’s zoo (Australia) as a human strategy for domestication and aestheticising the animal universe whilst simultaneously being harnessed to create a national identity.
The author argues that the construction of nature in this way legitimised colonial rule in Australia. It naturalises this form of control over nature and the oppression of indigenous people. It also reinforces gendered and racialized forms of hierarchy based on human-animal boundaries.
Philo (1995)
Animals should be considered as being “enmeshed in complex power relations with human communities and geographies”. They are not simply an addition to urban theory; they are important agents in shaping the city.
Animals have played an important part in setting apart rural from urban standards of civility, public decency and norms of compassion. Constructing this new urban order required the removal of livestock from the city. This reinforced urban identity as being in opposition to the rural population.
Whatmore and Hinchcliffe (2006)
Non-humans do not just exist in cities- they shape and are shaped by their relationship to the urban. Cities are co-habited by humans and non-humans alike.
Liveable cities must be considered in terms of attachments forced through and in more than human relations. Conviviality policies needs to accommodate these attachments.
The demography of the city unsettles the geography of modernity- forcing us to rethink our relationship to the city and whether humans can truly make a claim to it.
1) Cities are inhabited with and against the urban design.
2) Cities are co-habited in ways that are multiple, entangled and disruptive.
3) Engaging with this difference requires political and scientific experimentation
Barua and Sinha (2017)
Urban planners need to better understand the behaviour of species within the city. This requires increased input from ecologists in the planning of the city.
This is especially important considering more animals are being forced into the urban and using the city to their advantage. In this sense, wild nature is becoming accustomed to living in close proximity to the human- where are the boundaries drawn and how does this affect the relationship between the two?
Van Doreen (2010)
Interactions between humans and non-humans highlight the entangled processes of becoming urban.
Example: Vultures in India
Provide an ecological service of waste removal
Linked to religious and spiritual practices of offerings
BUT, 97% decline due to anti-inflammatory medicine used in cattle
This has meant that poorer people are having to do the dangerous work that vultures once did
Example: Little penguins in Sydney
These penguins live among the harbours and return to the same spots to breed each year
As the waterfront is becoming urbanised, this is becoming more dangerous for the penguins to do so
To refuse how the penguins relate to these particular spaces is to deny them of a claim to the city. Why should this be put after human claims?
Wolch 2002
Geographers have long neglected the role of nature in shaping the urban experience- the life and soul of the city is embedded in the animal as well as human life forms.
New approaches are beginning to blur the human-animal divide. They show how these relationships shape the everyday practices in the city and the larger role animals play in the project of modernity. Animals are critical to the making of places and landscapes.
Example: Los Angeles River
The urbanisation of LA was dependent upon this river for its water and fish
However, the urbanisation has compromised the water quality and the species living within it
It has now become a quest to ‘bring nature back’ into the city- this is non-state led
However, it will be interesting if this return of nature will be positive/negative for both humans and animals
With so many actors involved, each side of the story must be considered
Van Peter and Hovorka (2018)
Example: Feral cats in Ontario
These cats are contentious and transgressive. There is major disagreement/debate over whether to classify these animals as abandoned pets, wild animals or invasive species. The existence of these cats challenges the binaries between nature/culture and domesticated/wild.
We must reject these dualisms and take non-human agency seriously. We must begin to encounter animas as subjects of their own lifeworlds (not simply being part of ours). By doing so we can find new ways of sharing and co-producing meaningful relationships.
