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This book presents interdisciplinary research to examine the ongoing debates around nonhuman animals in urban spaces. It explores how we can better appreciate and accommodate animals in the city, while also exploring the ecological, health, ethical, and cultural implications of the same.
The book addresses seven interrelated themes such as blurred boundaries between the human and the nonhuman, the right of nonhuman species to the city, interactions between the human and nonhuman animals, the fabric of urban space, human and nonhuman complex systems, and collective welfare that forms the basis of a transspecies urban theory. It explains how a holistic understanding of the city requires that these blurred boundaries are acknowledged and critically examined. Chapters analytically consider the need to bring interspecies relationships to the fore to tackle questions of legitimacy and who has the "right" to the city. These also consider important intersections between the economic, political, social, and cultural aspects of the urban experience. The research contained in this book focuses on the development of an urban theory that would eradicate the divide between humans and other species in cities, and it depicts nonhuman animals as social actors that have voices within urban spaces.
With global insights on human-animal relationships in a contemporary context, this book will be useful reading for scholars and students of urban studies, animal sciences, animal law, animals and public policy, anthropology, and environmental studies who are interested in the study of animals in cities.
List of contents
Part 1: Exploring Theoretical Issues in Urban Human/Nonhuman Animal Relations 1. Animals in the City, A Review 2. The More-Than-Human Right to the City: A Multispecies Reevaluation 3. The Zoopolitics of Movement in the Postapartheid City 4. Of Fowl Feet, Beak, and Street: Eyes on the Ground in Ybor City Part 2: Multispecies Relationships in the City 5. Kawaii Pets and Animal Abandonment in Japan 6. There Goes the Neighborhood: Urban Coyotes and the Politics of Wildlife 7. The Multispecies Community Within the Training and Housing Complex Inside the Racetrack Sluzewiec, From Pre-Socialist, Through Socialist, to Present-Day Warsaw 8. Leisure, Life Satisfaction, and Urban Space: Elderly Bird Keepers in Hong Kong Part 3: Public Policy Implications of Animals in the City 9. When Urban Masculinity Manifests in Violence: On Finding Practical Solutions to End the Practice of Dogfighting in America 10. Animal Cruelty and the Urban Environment 11. Breed-Specific Legislation: An Examination of the Policy's Failures For Both People and Pit Bulls 12. The Management of Free-Roaming Cats in US Cities: An Increasingly Important Public Policy Issue 13. Humane Communities: Social Change Through Policies Promoting Collective Welfare
About the author
Laura A. Reese is Professor of Urban and Regional Planning, Political Science and Global Urban Studies at Michigan State University. She is the editor of the Global Urban Book Series for Routledge Publications and an editor for the journal Animals. Her main research and teaching areas are in urban politics/studies and public policy, economic development, animal welfare policy, and local governance, management, and planning in Canada and the United States. She has written or edited 17 books and over 100 articles and book chapters in these areas.
Summary
This book presents interdisciplinary research to examine the ongoing debates around non-human animals in urban spaces. It explores how we can better appreciate and accommodate animals in the city, while also exploring the ecological, health, ethical, and cultural implications of the same.
