Special Theme Issue: Animals and Geography Guest Editors: Chris Philo and Jennifer Wolch

Animal Domestication in Geographic Perspective

Kay Anderson
UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES


What, exactly, makes humans human? A close look at nonhuman animal domestication practices reveals how people came to view their own uniqueness in western cultural process. The study of domestication across time shows the multiple human impulses underlying acts of animal enclosure and domestication. Animals can be beloved companions or eaten for a meal. These impulses involve contradictory moralities -- a rich subject for inquiries into the dynamics of power and possession, at scales ranging from local to global.
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New Places for "Old Spots": The Changing Geographies of Domestic Livestock Animals

Richard Yarwood and Nick Evans
WORCESTER COLLEGE OF HIGHER EDUCATION, UNITED KINGDOM


This paper considers the real and imagined geographies of livestock animals. In doing so, it reconsiders the spatial relationship between people and domesticated farm animals. Some consideration is given to the origins of domestication and comparisons are drawn between the natural and domesticated geographies of animals. The paper mainly focuses on the contemporary geographies of livestock animals and, in particular, "rare breeds" of British livestock animals. Attention is given to the spatial relationship these animals have with people and the place of these animals in the British countryside today. The paper concludes by highlighting why it is important to consider livestock animal breeds as part of on-going research into the geographies of domestic livestock animals.
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Kangaroos: The Non-Issue

Lorraine Thorne
UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL, UNITED KINGDOM


The international trade of kangaroo skin and meat has been contested on ecological and ethical grounds for several decades. Yet, it continues unabated. This article reviews the constitutive practices of the kangaroo network, drawing on the Actor Network Theory to provide insights into why and how this trade continues. Questions of agency, network, and space are explored in this account, which looks at the real and imagined geographies of the kangaroo trade.
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Race, Place, and the Bounds of Humanity

Glen Elder
UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT

Jennifer Wolch
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

Jody Emel
CLARK UNIVERSITY


The idea of a human-animal divide as reflective of both differences in kind and in evolutionary progress, has retained its power to produce and maintain racial and other forms of cultural difference. During the colonial period, representations of similarity were used to link subaltern groups to animals and thereby racialize and dehumanize them. In the postcolonial present, however, animal practices of subdominant groups are typically used for this purpose. Using data on cultural conflicts surrounding animal practices collected from media sources, we show that such practices have become a key aspect of the human-animal boundary due to the radically changing time-space relations of postmodernity. Drawing on Spivak's (1990) notion of "wild practice," a radical democracy that includes animals as well as subaltern peoples, we argue for the rejection of dehumanization as a basis for cultural critique, given its role in perpetuating racialization and violence toward both human and non-human animals.

 

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