Paper short abstract:

This paper presents our (anthropologists’) experiences within ‘unnatural selection’ of cats and people in the film ‘Cats in Riga’ where cats are used as unknowing ethnicising and commodifying actors, strengthening stereotypical portrayals of Latvia as a peculiar, peripheral, postsoviet place.

Paper long abstract:

This paper presents our experiences as anthropologists within the 'unnatural selection' of cats and people in the film 'Cats in Riga' ('Kaķi Rīgā'), sponsored by European Capital of Culture 2014 funding. It also analyses the processes involved in this selection at the hands of a famous Danish documentary film director who chose Hamilton's idea to use cats as a means to represent the city. It shows how a lack of 'methodological mutualism' led to ethical quandaries. While cats are often used as a symbol of Riga, ironically, it is a city with a major feral population. Rather than as a means of presenting 'natural' cat behaviour, including human interactions, within an interesting urban environment, based on ethnographic fieldwork of 'catscapes' (as intended originally), the film became an exercise in sensationalism, provocation and stereotypical presentation. This resulted mostly from the process of 'selection', where cats were chosen based on their human owners' attributes, e.g. required to mirror the socio-economic status of their owners on one hand where cats are seen in dilapidated Soviet-era housing areas. On the other, cats became symbolic of ethno-political tension both within Riga, and within wider supposed quasi-regional ethno-national conflict (i.e. Ukraine). From a cat watching news reports of tanks, to cat and owner dressed in similar bright hues attending tense 9 May Victory Day celebrations seen as overwhelmingly ethnic Russian, cats are used as unknowing ethnicising and commodifying actors, strengthening stereotypical portrayals of Latvia as a peculiar, peripheral, postsoviet place within an unstable, troublesome eastern Europe.