Paper short abstract:

I argue that sometimes, animal movement should be understood as political. While animals cannot deliberate, they can act politically through acts akin to "everyday politics". These animal movements, hence, can also be understood as attempting to move socially: i.e., as political movements.

Paper long abstract:

Multispecies studies have lately been pushing the idea that animals, as social agents, fit certain social frameworks that we earlier reserved to humans. For example, animal studies have portrayed animals as ‘laborers’ (Porcher and Nicod 2018; Hribal 2007) ‘residents’, ‘denizens’, and ‘sovereign’ (Donaldson and Kymlicka 2011); similarly, some multispecies studies have recently used vocabulary from the social sciences usually reserved for humans (Cons and Eilenberg 2024; Ogden 2018).

In this paper, I propose that we push further what Ogden has called a “thought experiment”, i.e., using concepts from the social sciences for animals (Ogden 2018). If we take seriously that species have similarities with humans and reject anthropomorphism as has been proposed by some ethologist (de Waal 1999), I argue that anthropology “beyond-the-human” can also apply anthropological models for the study of animals themselves. We would, doing so, go “beyond-the-human” as was programmatically proposed by Kohn (Kohn 2013).

I propose that we understand animals not as agents in human-dominated, anthropogenised environments, but rather animals as political beings themselves. The politics they do, I argue, does not consist of the deliberative activities humans do, contrary to what some argued (Driessen 2014; Meijer 2017). Rather, it is an everyday politics of movement, occupation, invasion (Scott 1985; Vinthagen and Johansson 2013). By playing on the notions of movement and mobility, I argue that animals sometimes move physically to move socially, and their aim is social mobility. These animal movements, hence, are fundamentally a political activity we can understand with anthropological concepts.

Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on cockroaches in Bucharest(RO) examining their infrastructural roles. By analyzing how pests like cockroaches transgress and redefine geographic, legal, and cultural boundaries, I aim to explore their co-evolution, co-history, and co-constitution with urban environments.

Paper long abstract:

This study approaches cockroaches not merely as research objects but as knowledge assemblages that co-participate in the production of urban understanding. By studying how residents of Bucharest navigate life with cockroaches, I aim to uncover everyday practices that reveal deeper human-animal relations. I am looking at urban ecologies and infrastructures as 'critical zones'—spaces where various natural, biological, and technological forces interact in a fragile and dynamic way, with the capacity to trigger significant changes in the structure and stability of systems.

I follow the path of the cockroach through the underground infrastructure of Bucharest, moving through sewage systems, pipes, waste areas, surviving bursts of disinsection, entering the building's basement and climbing into people's apartments. Alongside the cockroach's journey, I also examine the movements of people. How we move from apartment to apartment because of cockroaches, and who has the privilege to do so - because although, in theory, we are equally exposed, pests tend to be abundant in the poorest and most crowded urban neighborhoods.

Additionally, I am also looking at the broader “movements” triggered by cockroaches, such as the infrastructure associated with their presence in cities, including the legal and regulatory issues governing when and how cockroaches should be controlled, the use of chemical substances, the effects of cockroach infestations on our relationships with others, and the role of the state in the proliferation and control of cockroach populations.

Paper short abstract:

This paper proposes to look at the relationships between a Dene community and caribou herds in the Canadian subarctic, and how reciprocal relationships and mobilities of those communities have been endangered by settler state's practices.

Paper long abstract:

Caribou have been historically central to Canadian subarctic Dene livelihood. Dene Elders remember a time when Barren-grounds caribou crossed their community on their migration route in winter, “as many as ants on a hill.” The relationships between caribou herds and Dene are anchored in reciprocal respect and mutual help (Beaulieu, 2012; Anderson, 2014). Those relations became endangered by settlers’ hunting and land management practices, which eventually drove caribou herds away. The loss of this crucial relationship with caribou at a local level generated the need to travel further away to hunt caribou herds. How were caribou movements reshaped by settlers’ practices? What does it reveal about caribou herds’ agency in their relations to human communities? How do Dene hunters and communities renegotiate caribou herds’ mobilities and their own?

This paper draws on a 15-months fieldwork with a Dene First Nation and community members of the town for my PhD studies. In conversations with local Dene and Cree members, this paper proposes to explore the agency attributed by Dene communities to caribou herds in their mobility; and how Dene communities renegotiate their own movement on the land, problematising governments' restrictions (Sandlos, 2007) that marginalise both caribou herds and Dene communities.

Paper short abstract:

Recent energy and development projects have affected, transformed, dispossessed, and disrupted human animal relationship, their traditional migration routes, common lands, and have also reshaped their animal rearing activities and mobilities along with changing water bodies and solar energy projects

Paper long abstract:

Mega energy projects in the Thar Desert of Pakistan are reshaping and reconstructing human animals relationshps and mobilities. The desert is known as a habitat for indigenous pastoralist groups. Since the initiation of coal mining, energy projects, solar energy projects, and infrastructure-related development, the region has experienced reshaping, relocation, and dispossession of animal and human mobility and their existence. The region's identity, sense of belonging, and subsistence livelihood have been shaped by rain, drought, and human animal mobilities, particularly during the monsoon season or in drought year. Recent energy and development projects have affected, transformed, dispossessed, and disrupted their local relationships with animals, their traditional migration routes, common lands, and have also reshaped their animal rearing activities and mobilities along with changing water bodies, and solar energy water projects. The shrinking of common lands and urbanization have reshaped new mobilities with the possibility of solar water pumps, not only altering the pattern of seasonal mobility but also changing the human animals relationships and practices in the desert. Furthermore, this paper will highlight how camels, historically known as the ships of the desert, are becoming a burden in cemented development infrastructure, while donkeys, once domesticated, are now reverting to a wild state. This research is based on ethnographic fieldwork and embedded knowledge as a native of the region who belongs to a pastoralist family. Ethnographic fieldwork was conducted for a doctoral project between 2022 and 2023 in the southeastern district of Pakistan, bordering India.

Paper short abstract:

This paper calls for moving beyond catastrophic thinking around human-polar bear encounters: while risks remain, exaggerated narratives of danger impede peaceful coexistence that would allow all to enjoy being and moving through Svalbard.

Paper long abstract:

When moving through Svalbard, one must always be prepared for a polar bear encounter. This necessity shapes socio-political and economic life: tourism thrives on the allure of polar bear sightings, with tours advertising once-in-a-lifetime encounters. Local shops are replete with polar bear merchandise, and regulations require polar bear guards for those venturing beyond settlements. These all perpetuate imaginaries of Svalbard as a dangerous, last wilderness. Yet, tensions exist between the aims of businesses, residents, and visitors and those of local government, which has recently tightened policies to limit movement and restrict human-bear interactions. These policies, intended to protect a "pristine" environment and the wellbeing of both species, have been criticised by the tourism sector for hampering business and limiting visitor experience. Some argue that these restrictions are motivated less by conservation and safety than by geopolitical interests. This paper explores how such regulations impact how residents, tourists, and businesses navigate daily life, engage in place-making, and form a collective identity around polar bear coexistence. It calls for moving beyond catastrophic thinking around human-polar bear encounters, contending that, while risks remain, exaggerated narratives of danger impede peaceful coexistence that would allow all parties—bear and human—to enjoy being and moving through Svalbard.

Paper short abstract:

Ex-situ nature conservation engages in constant negotiation of the movement of animals and microbes: zoos are filled with infrastructures built to control movement while also being hubs of (non-)human mobilities, leaving staff to integrate “wild” animal movements into zoo routines.

Paper long abstract:

Zoos conserve nature ex-situ, that is out of zoo-animals natural habitats, while at the same time forming a habitat for "wild" animals that enter and leave the zoo of their own accord. Despite enclosure infrastructures, zoos are hubs of movements for these "wild" animals: insects, birds, rodents, as well as microbes. In this paper I will explore the movements of zoo keepers alongside "wild" rodents, birds, insects, and microbes, building on ethnographic research with zoo keepers in a British zoo in the years after the Covid-19 pandemic, and consider how zoo staff negotiate the movement of animals and microbes outwith their control.

Zoos then manage intentional movement of zoo-animals kept for conservation breeding, and education (between zoos, within zoos); and the careful prevention of movements, for example through enclosures, cleaning, and quarantines. At the same time, "wild" animals and microbes move across sites and through immobilizing infrastructures, and their patterns of movement are acknowledged and even anticipated by zoo staff onsite. I will take you through the obstacles, borders, and hostile spaces zoos build in response to the "wild" animals that choose to reside within or pass through the zoo, but also infrastructures and routines that offer safer routes of passage for both them and the zoo-animals. Zoo keepers care for "wild" animals in various ways within the remits of their job, integrating "wild" animal mobilities into the zoo's routines while managing potential disease risks to zoo-animals.

Paper short abstract:

The main idea of my presentation is to show how animal mobility was understood and used by people in the context of forced breeding of animals. To do this, I turn to materials describing the practice of artificial reindeer breeding on the Novaya Zemlya archipelago from 1928 to 1937.

Paper long abstract:

Ideas for forced breeding of reindeer and their spread beyond common areas of their habitat, appeared in the mid-19th century both in Russia and in Europe, and were later supported by successful experience on Römö Island and in Alaska. In biology, this process was called deliberate introduction, i.e. the deliberate import of animals with the purpose of their resettlement outside their natural range. This presentation encourages readers to take a look at the experience of domestic reindeer breeding on the islands of Novaia Zemlia, undertaken in the first third of the 20 century. Through this example is drew attention to the idea of artificial reindeer breeding, which is designed to emphasize an initiation of a food base for population, and in particular to compensate the loss of a significant reduction of the wild deer hunting. Domestic reindeer herding of Novaia Zemlia was existed less than 10 years – from 1928 to 1937, but it left an imprint on the development of hunting and fishing island economy. This was reflected, on the one hand, on genetic mixing of reindeer brought from Kolguev island with wild individuals of Novaia Zemlia which is of recognized as ʻʻgeographical isolatesʼʼ. On the other hand, there is the statement that domestic reindeer on the Novaia Zemlia is Nenets traditional economy. The presentation draws on in-depth archival work.

Paper short abstract:

In fox-hunting, the movements of humans, foxes, and hounds intersect. The overall activity, however, is shaped by efforts of rival human groups to manipulate the sensory and spatial worlds that hunting's non-human participants move through.

Paper long abstract:

Drawing on extensive ethnographic fieldwork with hunt saboteurs - direct action animal rights activists who disrupt fox-hunting, this presentation will explore the interrelated movements of humans, foxes, and hounds at British fox-hunts.

While the movements hunting hounds should, in theory, be guided by those of the fox, they are heavily mediated by the actions of humans. Unlike in American fox-hunting, British hounds are not relied on to spontaneously find the line of the fox, but are guided by their huntsman, who will seek to manipulate both them and the fox in order to ensure the longest chase possible. Hunt saboteurs, moreover, use a variety of tactics to prevent the chase, misleading the hounds as to the location of the fox through voice calls and audio recordings, and using scent sprays to physically interrupt the trail laid by the fox.

Here, Tim Ingold's (2007, 2008, & 2015) theorisation of lines is useful, however the power differential between humans, hounds, and foxes suggests that the species are not equal in how they relate to the lines, with humans not simply moving through their own lines, but also working to manipulate the lines of others in order to ensure that multispecies encounters proceed as they wish them to.