Paper short abstract:

This paper examines socio-ecological transformations of the domestic environment in mid-20th century Copenhagen by approaching and analysing encounters and conflicts between rats, urban residents and governmental authorities as negotiations of everyday welfare and citizenship.

Paper long abstract:

This paper investigates transformations of the domestic environment in mid-20th century Copenhagen through the lens of rats. In this period, Copenhagen underwent significant spatial and architectural changes as new urban legislation for planning, housing, slum clearance and pest control were passed in context of the emerging welfare society. This development entailed a transformation of the bio-social conditions of domestic and urban life. Increasingly, urban authorities and urban dwellers identified and experienced dysfunctional infrastructures, sanitary shortcomings and pervasive nature in the form of animals, dampness and mould as intolerable ‘nuisances’. Rats, in particular, became a contentious issue within this context, transcending the porous socio-spatial boundaries between public and private. This found expression both in the centralization of urban pest control and in several public rat extermination campaigns.

Taking its starting point in the physical attributes, behaviour and resilience of rats, this paper aims to examines encounters and conflicts between rats, residents and governmental authorities in the urban domestic environment. Focusing on inspection reports of condemned housing from the Copenhagen Health Police and the Municipal Housing Commission, the paper pursues two interrelated objectives. First, analyses the sensory and emotional experiences of rats in the context of rapidly changing expectations regarding urban housing standards. Secondly, it links these experiences to broader questions of citizenship and welfare. The inspection reports, the paper argues, exhibit how domestic space came to work as a socio-ecological arena for everyday political negotiations where questions of welfare and citizenship intertwined with categories such as family, gender, hygiene and privacy.