(Re-)Animating Landscape, Space, and Place: An Animal Geographer's Approach to Understanding Human-Animal Relationships

Our next LSP Session will be led by Kate Whiston, who will be talking about '(Re-)Animating Landscape, Space, and Place: An Animal Geographer’s Approach to Understanding Human-Animal Relationships'. Kate has kindly provided us with a short introduction to her session, along with 3 texts for discussion:

Human-animal relationships have become increasingly subject to scrutiny by geographers. Animal geography, as a subdiscipline, emerged in the 1990s as part of the ‘cultural turn’, and, since then, geographers have investigated the spaces, places, practices, and ethics in involved across a broad spectrum of human-animal relationships. My research focuses on British pigeon fancying from 1850 until World War One, and considers the ways in which fanciers and their pigeons were co-defined through practices of racing and showing. The readings below will hopefully provide an introduction to some of the ways in which geographers understand human-animal relationships as spatially constituted.

• Jerolmack, C.(2008). “How pigeons became rats: the cultural-spatial logic of problem animals”, Social Problems, 55: 72-94.
• Matless, D., Merchant, P. and Watkins, C. (2005). “Animal landscapes: otters and wildfowl in England 1945-1970”, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 30: 191-205.
• Power, E.R.(2012). “Domestication and the dog: embodying home”, Area, 44(3): 371-378.

As usual, readings will be made available to those on the mailing list ahead of the session.

We look forward to seeing lots of you there on the 27th!