photo credit: Frodrig

Thank-you for your interest in finding out more about Animals in Place.

About the theme

Animal in Place, as the theme for this edited collection, is considered both literally and figuratively in the following dimensions:

1. Specificity matters. Human-animal relationships occur between specific individuals, in specific places, at specific times (each day, each year, over time) and yet they are often reported as generalizations: dislocated, abstract, atemporal. Encounters, no matter how brief or rare, are relevant to cultivating an understanding of how humans and animals can and should interact with each other, which is why anecdotes are a tremendously valuable contribution to research in animal studies. Through each encounter, each may learn something about the other and themselves by paying close attention to what happens, how it comes about, how the space is involved, how each responds to the other, or not. Such attentiveness includes a recognition of technologies which may be active in mediating the encounter.

2. Where we encounter animals can have a significant impact upon how we see animals. Some settings and instances encourage us to see them as unique individuals, while others foster a homogenizing tendency to see animals as generic representatives of species. Consequently, place is a factor in the kinds of relationships we can even imagine having with other animals. Opportunities for meaningful contact may be obscured by the way places are organized physically and socially; not the least of which is the way power circulates in specific places. Let us also not forget the expectations we bring to places of encounter which may affect both what happens and how we interpret and understand what does or does not happen.

This is perhaps most obvious in the re-production of tourism in which tourists expect to experience exactly what they saw in the brochure or commercial and can be so focused on reproducing the perfect moment in the form of a souvenir that they fail to “be in the moment” and really experience it for themselves. While technologies such as cameras, binoculars, signs and field guidebooks are often central to such a re-production and can thus contribute to a lack of attention to the actual animals, they can also substantially enhance encounters and enable heightened attention and focus upon individuals. And yet, their ambivalence should not be mistaken for neutrality.

3. Placelessness, as a concept, rules in mainstream environmental philosophy. Ethical theories concerning animals tend to assume that interactions occur in a vacuum, such that abstract moral principles suffice for all issues and conflicts, everywhere, anytime. Feminist ethicists have, for a very long time, reacted against the omniscient central moral subject, countering with the primacy of context, care, and specific relationships. Even this emphasis, however, may remain superficial by stopping at identifying a setting and a kind of relationship. Few take into consideration the ‘presence’ of space, the felt affects of material and social influences. Animal geographies locate animals and analyze their presence, absence, consequences and reasons for either, but often do not operate in phenomenological, multisensory dimensions. Generally speaking, they can all miss the intercorporeality of encounters between and among humans, other animals and places.

Call for proposals

We are seeking chapter proposals for an edited collection investigating the relationship between animals and place. Multidisciplinary in its scope, the editors encourage submissions across the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities. The editors envision a book that acknowledges and considers the role of place in the multiple situated encounters between human and other animals.

Questions to be considered:

• How, if at all, do concepts of domestic, wild or feral places affect the contours and outcomes of encounters?
• How might the relational space change when we encounter individuals of a species in distinctly different places (i.e. enclosed versus open spaces)?
• In co-constructing knowledge about non-human animals, is space considered?
• How, if at all, are factors, such as chance, spontaneity and imagination, impacted by the locations we encounter animal others?
• What do non-Euclidean ideas of space offer to human-animal relationships?

We encourage potential contributors to negotiate the dynamic role of place in human-animal interactions and ethical relationships. Encounters in a variety of spatial and relational configurations will be included in the volume, enlivening and contributing to a collective imagining of animals in place, particularly the place of humans in a multispecies and multidimensional world.

Please submit proposals for chapters (500 words, maximum) by March 1, 2010.

Submissions should be sent to both Dr. Traci Warkentin (twarkent [at] hunter.cuny.edu) and Gavan P.L. Watson (gavan [at] yorku.ca). Selected submissions will be notified by April 5, 2010. Completed chapters will be due by August 1, 2010.

Proposed schedule

March, 2010: Receive chapter proposals
April, 2010: Contributor list finalized
August, 2010: Chapter drafts due
December, 2010: Revisions due

About the Co-editors

Dr. Traci Warkentin is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at Hunter College, CUNY. Her primary research focus explores relational spaces of human-whale encounters. Her current research interests were sparked while working at the Vancouver Marine Science Centre where she got to know the resident Orcas: Hyak, Bjossa and Finna.

Gavan P.L. Watson is a PhD candidate (ABD) in the Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, Toronto. His doctoral research investigates the multiple practices of birdwatching.