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- Convenors:
-
Letizia Bindi
(Università degli Studi del Molise)
Nora Schuurman (University of Turku)
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- Discussant:
-
Gala Argent
(Animals Society Institute)
- Formats:
- Panel
- Stream:
- Posthumanism
- Sessions:
- Monday 21 June, -
Time zone: Europe/Helsinki
Short Abstract:
The panel focuses on the notion of agency and the consequent rules and protocols about human-animal relationships in controversial contexts such as traditional local practices, global/national sport competitions, and leisure behaviors involving the cooperation with / use of animals.
Long Abstract:
The panel focuses on a radical critique of the notion of agency and the consequent shift in defining rules and protocols to deal with human-animal relationships in controversial contexts such as traditional local practices, but also global/national sport competitions as well as leisure behaviors and trends involving the cooperation/use of animals. Strictly founded on ethnographic studies, the panel aims at discussing: which kind of agency is today addressed and defined in human/animal relationships? which type of assertivity and sensibility are represented in the debate between traditional practices or sports events involving animals? Which type of activist movements are presently fighting against any kind of animal exploitation basing on sentient being definition and legal agency recognition of animals? The clash between different approaches to human-animal co-being imposes today the reconsideration of limits of the subjectivity, the redefinition of the anthropocentric thought about nature and animal management and control, touching some of the most radical limits of the anthropological thought and practice, reconsidering the notions of respect, compassion and culture/nature interaction.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Monday 21 June, 2021, -Elisabeth Luggauer (Humboldt University Berlin)
Paper short abstract:
Based on ethnographic fieldwork within a contact zone of animal welfare activists and a group of street dogs in Podgorica, this paper explores how the dogs’ relational agentive mobilities reveal, challenge, and transgress urban spatial rules.
Paper long abstract:
Based on ethnographic fieldwork, this paper examines the mobilities of the Ćemovsko Dogs, a group of street dogs located within a brownfield area in Podgorica as relational agency (Latour 2005; Ingold, 2011; Tsing 2012; Fenske 2020) with the space and the humans of the contact zone (Haraway 2008). The dogs' mobilities reveal, challenge, and transgress the urban spatial rules the brownfield area is embedded in. It is mostly used as a transition zone, for sport, and includes a hobby airport and Montenegro’s only park for dog owners and their dogs. Within this Postsocialist, lately highly capitalized and Europeanized city, keeping dogs as pets has become a spreading trend in the past decades. Being the side effects of this trend, street dogs are perceived as beings between the traditional categories of the domesticated dog who lives with an owner, and the wild animal, that is not dependent on human’s care at all and is hunted to be controlled in population. The spatial appropriations of the Ćemovsko Dogs as liminal agents reveal, challenge, and transgress the classical rules of animal spaces that are given to animals in human systems of order and beastly places that animals claim apart from them (Philo/Wilbert 2000). Concretely, this paper focuses on the everyday negotiations of animal welfare activists with the dogs’ agentive mobilities, and the activists' struggles to grant these liminal urban agents a dedicated and safe space in the urban environment.
Nicoletta Miraglia (Molise University) ALDO DI BRITA (UNIVERSITA’ DEGLI STUDI DEL MOLISE)
Paper short abstract:
As more countries ask their human populations to stay at home to limit the spread of coronavirus, wild animals explored the empty streets of some of the world's largest urban areas. This paper will highlight the different situations developed by unusual wild animals in urban areas
Paper long abstract:
As more countries ask their human populations to stay at home to limit the spread of coronavirus, wild animals have been spotted exploring the empty streets of some of the world's largest urban areas. This flexibility in behaviour means they can usually quickly respond to changing conditions, including the absence of humans, which is happening during the lockdown. As billions of people across the planet have retreated indoors to combat the spread of the coronavirus, wildlife roams more freely. Empty streets and the absence of people have made animals bolder while animals normally dependent on tourists, desperately seek food. As humans retreat into their homes as more and more countries go under coronavirus lockdown, wild animals are slipping cover to explore the empty streets of some of our biggest cities. This period of unusually reduced human mobility can provide invaluable insights into human-wildlife interactions. Reduced human mobility during the pandemic will reveal critical aspects of our impact on animals, providing important guidance on how best to share space on this crowded planet. Lockdown effects have been drastic, sudden, and widespread. Countries have also responded in broadly similar ways across large parts of the world, presenting invaluable replicates of this perturbation. This paper will highlight the different situations developed by unusual wild animals in urban areas during the pandemic period and possible interactions human-wildlife.
Caterina Palombo (INTRAMONTES NGO) Angela Tavone (Salviamo l'Orso) Mario Cipollone (Rewilding Apennines) Stefano Orlandini (Salviamo l'Orso - ONG)
Paper short abstract:
The Apennine brown bear is reclaiming lands in the Central Apennines, from which disappeared centuries ago. Thus likelihood of interactions with traditional rural activities is increasing. Thanks to "bear smart community" living with wildlife is possible and has more benefits than constraints.
Paper long abstract:
The Apennine brown bear (Ursus arctos marsicanus) is an umbrella species in the Italian Central Apennines. As this subspecies of the European bear is reclaiming lands from which disappeared centuries ago, the likelihood of interactions with traditional rural activities is increasing. This urges the necessity to apply best practices to prevent human-bear conflicts. Improving farm animals’ welfare is a key driver to establish heathier habitats both for wildlife and humans. In fact, on the one hand industrial society and urban sprawl have fragmented the environment and detached the rural communities from ecological processes; on the other hand, land abandonment pushed nature close to households. Since the end of WWII, hobby farming has replaced professional farming, which was relegated to backyards and virtually separated from the encroaching forest. The natural comeback of the forest and wild inhabitants has been perceived by some residents as alien intruders and potential conflicts has risen. Salviamo l’Orso (SLO – Let’s save a bear), a grass-rooted NGO which focuses on grounded conservation actions, in 2015 started a bear smart community process in Pettorano sul Gizio, where a bear was shot dead the year before on retaliation of the killing of a few chickens. Since then, in collaboration with local partners, SLO has implemented a set of best practices which have shown a positive impact not only on bear conservation, but also on the local communities and the human-dominated landscape demonstrating that living with wildlife is possible and has more benefits than constraints.