Paper short abstract:

Based on mobilities of the “Ćemovsko Dogs”, a group of street dogs in Podgorica, this paper discusses boundaries in spatial and cultural orders along spacing and placing, “owner’s dogs” and “street dogs” as well as “trends” and outcasts. Building upon this it aims to reflect on ideas of an urban anthropology beyond the human.

Paper long abstract:

Based on multispecies-ethnographic fieldwork in Podgorica (Montenegro), this paper focuses on spatial practices of multispecies agents on Ćemovsko Polje, a brownfield area in the southwest of the City. “Ćemovsko” is confined by vineyards, the city’s cattle market, a hobby airport and the residential quarters Vrela Ribnička and Stari Aerodrom. It has been used by shepherds, as a transit area from Vrela Ribnička towards the city center and as a meeting point for lovers and drug users. With the construction of a “park” consisting of fitness devices, playground equipments and the “dog park”, Montenegro’s first area devoted to humans and their owned dogs, “Ćemovsko” became also a highly frequented space for leisure activities. In autumn 2015 animal welfare activists positioned there self-constructed huts for street dogs found all over Podgorica. From spring 2016 on, the “Ćemovsko Dogs” started to roam around their dwellings. They appeared in the “dog park”, chased cars of visitors of the hobby airport and finally appeared regularly in Stari Aerodrom. Their human-initiated as well as animal-initiated practices of claiming spaces are oscillating between animal spaces as spaces that are given to animals in human orderings and beastly places which animals claim apart from them (Philo/Wilbert 2000). Starting from the mobilities of the “Ćemovsko Dogs” this paper discusses boundaries in spatial and cultural orders along spacing and placing, “owner’s dogs” and “street dogs” as well as “trends” and outcasts. Building upon this it aims to reflect on ideas of an urban anthropology beyond the human.