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Guest Editors' Introduction

Through the Geographical Looking Glass: Space,

Place, and Society-Animal Relations

Chris Philo

UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW

Jennifer Wolch1

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

As geographers interested in human-animal relations, a recent paper in Society &

Animals immediately caught our eye on account of its main title, "Safe in Unsafe

Places" (Gillespie, Leffler & Lemer, 1996). The study explores how human

interactions in certain types of places are altered by the presence of dogs popularly

perceived to be aggressive. Adopting a participant observation role as dog enthu-

siasts travelling around the country attending dog shows with their own Rottwei ler

dogs, the authors uncover a range of shifting relations involving people, dogs and

spatial-temporal settings. For instance, spaces normally seen as threatening or

"unsafe" (such as a beach late at night) became much safer with the Rottweilers

present. Conversely, spaces normally assumed to be "safe" (such as a village during the day) suddenly became unsafe because the big dogs prompted unpredictable reactions from other humans and also from other animals (leading to the possibility of pre-emptive strikes against both the researchers and their dogs). The researchers

offered the following conclusions:

Thus our experience of travel with dogs problematized our ordinary

conceptualizations of safe and unsafe places, situations and times; of

public and private space .... The taken-for-granted boundaries between

social spheres in daily life are ordinarily borderlines we treat as if they were

impermeable and unchanging .... Work and leisure; public and private; and, most relevant for this paper, safe and unsafe places, times, and people are seen as immutable antipodes. In fact, of course, they blur, harden, and

shift in the give and take of everyday life. (Gillespie, Leffler & Lerner,

1996, pp. 179, 185-186)

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In this special theme issue, we wish to expand upon such intriguing discussions

about space, place, and human-animal relations. Specifically, our purpose is to

introduce the work of academic geographers interested in animals to a wider

readership beyond the discipline of geography itself, and demonstrate the value of

a geographical perspective to research on society-animal relations. In order to place such work in proper context, this introduction has two main components. First, we

outline the history and character of academic geographical interest in animals; and

secondly, we discuss some of the basic concepts, notably "place" and "space," which geographers deploy when studying all manner of phenomena, animals

included. Against this backdrop, we preview the specific contributions comprising this issue.

Geography and the Study of Animals

Although never prominent in the discipline, academic geographers have long shown some interest in nonhuman animals. A glance through recent geographical

journals reveals papers on regional patterns of koala habitat in Australia (Bryan. 1997), hog farming in North Carolina (Furuseth, 1997), horse-breeding in the

Hunter Valley, Australia (Robinson, 1996), late 19th century controversy over seal

hunting in the Bering Sea (Castree, 1997), and tourist-wildlife interaction (Orams,

1996). This interest in animals is long-standing. Turn-of-the century geographical

journals offered a not dissimilar range of topics, including papers on "the geogra-

phy of mammals" (Sclater, 1894a, 1894b, 1895, 1896a, 1896b, 1897a, 1897b) as

well as, oddly enough, pieces on aquatic plants and animals by Guppy ( 1893), bird

migration by Eagle Clarke ( 1896) and the distribution and habits of whales by M6bius ( 1894)!

Moreover, an identifiable branch of the discipline known as "animal geogra-

phy" dates at least from Newbigin's s 1913 text Animal Geography. Animal

geography was also accorded a role in Hartshorne's classic 1939 survey The Nature

of Geography, as one of the "systematic" subfields of the discipline (along with

climate, soils, plants, topography, etc.) allied outside the field to the "systematic science" of zoology. According to Hartshorne, research from the various system- atic physical and human geographic subfields allowed the elucidation of "areal

differentiation" or regional geographies serving to distinguish different areas or

regions of the earth's surface.

Despite assessments of the status of animal geography from the 1940s through to the 1960s (Bennett, 1961; Cansdale, 1949; Davies, 1961; Stuart, 1954), by the

1970s animal geography had all but disappeared from the discipline. Recently,

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however, a new animal geography - almost exclusively conceptualized as part of

human ratherthan physical geography-has appeared, and revived the subspeciality. In order to unpack the dynamics underlying this change in direction and subsequent

reinvigoration, we distinguish between the two chief lines of research conducted

over the years under the heading of animal geography: zo6geography and cultural

animal geography.

Zo5geograph-v

Writing in 1949 for a popular geographical magazine, Cansdale noted that:

One of the most fascinating aspects of natural history is animal geography - the why and wherefore of animal distribution .... In the thrush family, for

instance, why do the blackbird, the song thrush and the mistle thrush stay here [in Britain] for most of the time and nest in our gardens and coppices while the redwing and fieldfare go far north to breed? And why does the

blackbird's close relative the ring ouzel lead a fully migratory life and

make its summer home in the moors and fells? These are small, rather local

questions in animal ecology, but there are other and much wider problems. ( 1949, p.108)

Animal geography was here cast as the study of animal distributions, asking about

where different types of animals are to be found, whether at local or continental

scales, and the environmental correlates of these distributions. The majority of

work referred to as animal geography has been of this sort, from Sclater ( I 894 ef

seq.), who sought to delimit the six main terrestrial regions of mammalian life, to

recent papers published in the Journal of Biogeography. This work, based on

conventional scientific research methods and models, was initially and remains

strongly linked with the cognate scientific disciplines of zoology and (more widely) >

ecology and biology. Early on, for example, Clark asserted in a review of

"geography and zoology" that "there must be a much closer correlation between

biology and geography than has hitherto been suspected" (1927, p. 102), while

Cansdale expressly regarded animal geography as "but one aspect of animal

ecology" (1949, p. 109). Moreover many of the practitioners of this approach to

animal geography would not warrant (or desire) the formal disciplinary designation of "geographer," since many of them arrived at their studies from disciplinary

backgrounds outside of geography. Although they produced geographies, "[m]ost

zo6geographers were originally trained as systematic zoologists, paleontologists or

ecologists" (Stuart, 1954, p. 443), leading Davies to reflect that "[a]nimal geography

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is perhaps the branch of geography least practised by geographers, and the one they most cheerfully abandon to the systematic sciences" ( 1961, p.412). Even now. few

geographers contribute zo6geographical studies to the Journal of Biogeography. We argue that the natural-scientific bent of this zo6geographical version of

animal geography conspired to leave it saying little about animal interactions with

human society. Rather, it became embedded within a scientific physical geography

looking to ascertain "natural" correlations and causations apart from the distur-

bances occasioned by human influence. This is not entirely the case; some earlier

writings did reflect on "what all this complex distribution of animal life has meant

and still means to [humans]" (Thomson, 1905, p. 118), and explored the relations

between animals and humans in terms of "competition, conflict, domestication and

biological control" (Cansdale, 1950, 1951a, 1951 b, 1951 c, 1951 d, 1952). Simi-

larly, in more recent biogeographical papers the human influence is occasionally assessed (Carter, 1997, p. 153). Nonetheless, the consideration given to society- animal relations in such work is patchy. The human dimension is introduced as an

unwanted and alien intrusion, which remains wholly untheorized. At the same time

the animals themselves tend to be regarded with a detached scientific eye as things

utterly unlike humans. Cast as purely natural objects to be tracked, trapped. counted, mapped and modeled, they are assumed devoid of any "inner life," any form of experience, consciousness or sociability, which might be worth taking

seriously.

Cultural Animal Geography '

As late as the 1960s, zoogeography was "usually considered... too remote from the

central problems of human geography" (Davies, 1961, p. 412), but an interest in

animals has not always been totally divorced from the more human end of the

discipline. Bennett offered the following observation:

The author wishes here to propose [another] approach to the study of

animal geography, an approach that is certain to be a rewarding area of

research for geographers even though they are equipped with only a

modest background in the biological sciences. The proposed field could

well be termed cultural animal geography, for it would encompass those

aspects of animal geography which accumulate, analyze and systematize data relevant to the interactions of animals and human cultures. ( 1960,

p. 13; emphasis in original)

Bennett raised the possibility of research on human-animal interactions, demonstrating

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how humans have exerted an influence upon animal "numbers and distributions" and

examining how animals respond to processes of domestication, practices of subsist-

ence hunting and fishing, and also more indirect human impacts such as fire, war, and

travel. In addition, he argued fora focus on how animals influence dimensions of human

life (destroying crops or carrying disease), and on their role as key elements of the

natural environment which "determine" the character of a region's human geography

(the settlement, agriculture, and industry). Bennett's proposals effectively dovetailed with Sauer's approach to under-

standing the cultural landscape, set forth in Seeds, Spades, Hearths and Herds

( 1952), which documented the role of animal domestication in the conversion of

natural into cultural landscapes. Sauer's Berkeley School of cultural geography. which dominated much of North American geography during the first half of the

20th century, inspired such work as Isaac's (1970) study of the geography of

domestication and the Simoonses' ( 1968) research on the ceremonial uses of the ox

in India. A noteworthy aspect of this approach has been its resistance to a simplistic economic explanation of society-animal relations, and the recognition of non-

economic roles of animals in human societies (as companion animals or for use in

religious ceremonies; Donkin, 1991, p. ix; Donkin, 1985, 1989). While this stress

on the non-economic origins of animal domestication has itself been criticized

(Rodrigues, 1992, p. 366), what matters here is the contemplation of an enlarged cultural realm in which animals are more than the "resources" studied by

zoogeographers or the units of production investigated by agricultural geogra-

phers. This conceptual space opened the way for the utilization of animals by human society to be scrutinized by geographers as something other than natural and

unproblematic (Yarwood, Evans & Higginbottom, 1997, p. 17).

In recent years there has been a definite revival of interest in animal geography, one securely anchored in the orbit of human geography. This new turn has been

inspired by the encounter between human geography and a range of new conceptual notions derived from political economy, social theory, cultural studies, feminism.

post-colonial critique, psychoanalysis, and anthropology, as well as a partial retrieval of older Sauerian traditions. This "new" cultural animal geography reflects upon situations where people and animals coexist in particular sites and

territories, and ponders the social interactions between the people and certain non-

human groupings in the vicinity. For example, Wolch, West and Gaines propose a "transspecies urban theory"

alert to the realities of a city built to accommodate not only humans but also "a

shadow population of non-humans spanning the phylogenetic scale" ( 1995, p.

736). It is this theoretical window which also informs Wolch, Gullo and Lassiter's «

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( 1997) analysis of changing attitudes toward cougars in California. In a similar

vein, Philo ( 1995) inquires into the plight of livestock animals directed by humans

into the live meat markets and slaughterhouses of 19th century London. Such

studies point to how particular human societies wish to exclude certain types of

animals from their homes and neighborhoods (because they are regarded as "wild."

"unclean," "unhygienic") while choosing to include other types of animals (be-

cause they are regarded as "tame," "clean," or "charismatic"). If Philo and Wolch stress the exclusions in their work, Tuan ( l 984) traces the

inclusions-embedded within inherently unequal and "paternalist" power relations

- entailed in the keeping of pets within the domestic milieux of human society. Such

work also signals the more symbolic dimensions of the encounter between humans

and animals. Animals in general (as well as specific species) often become coded

as dirty and polluting, thus feeding a common impulse to exclude them from the

realm of everyday human life. Such codings become intimately bound up in the

identity politics of human groups, in that metaphors and images of animality, of the

bestial and the savage, are often deployed by mainstream society to represent those

regarded as marginal, misfit or deviant. Sibley develops this theme when consid-

ering the socio-spatial exclusions endured by "outsiders" such as European

Gypsies and other ethnic minorities, and he writes that "[t]o dehumanize through

claiming animal attributes for others is one way of legitimating exploitation and

exclusion from civilized society" (1995, p. 27). Emel (1995) has excavated the

cross-currents running between representations of the wolf in the United States.

ensnared in connotations of the wild, darkness or evil, and representations of

"native Indians."

The chief claim we make at this point is that a new cultural animal geography has emerged within the discipline. This emergence is marked by a recent theme

issue of the journal Society and Space (Wolch & Emel, 1995), by forthcoming books on animal geography (Wolch & Emel, 1998), and by the running of specialist sessions at professional geography conferences in both the United Kingdom and the

US.

Some Basic Geographical Concepts and Animal Geography

What possibilities arise from adopting a geographical perspective in researching animals and society-animal relations? To address this question, we sketch the basic

concepts which frame Anglo-American geographic research, and then suggest how

they can illuminate the "animal question."

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Space, Distribution and Location

Philosophers' perennial disagreements over the nature of space have led to different

ways of understanding space within academic geography (Gregory, 1994 ; Pickles,

1985; Sack, 1980). For many geographers, however, space is a relative concept.

referring to relations between phenomena distributed across a range of identifiably different locations. Such phenomena might be features of the natural world such as

mountains and forests, or features of the human world such as settlements and

factories. At base, the relations between these phenomena, spatial relations, are

conceived of in terms of proximity and distance, direction of one from others, and

connective travel routes. Such an understanding can lead to highly geometric

conceptions of space and abstract notions of spatial relations, suggesting the

existence of fundamental spatial laws governing the distribution and location of

many different kinds of phenomena both natural and human. In the search to

discover such spatial laws, some geographers have looked for quantifiable corre-

lations between spatial patterns (on maps) displayed by different variables thought to be causally related (say, fertile land and rural settlement).

Such a spatial science approach to geographical inquiry became influential

during the 1950s and 1960s in reaction to the regional geography of Hartshorne

(Cloke, Philo & Sadler, 1991), but soon earned serious criticism from Marxist,

feminist, and humanist geographers. Continuing to probe human spatial relations.

but with a more qualitative eye, such geographers have focused on how these

relations are themselves indelibly embedded within a maze of economic, political, social, and cultural processes, forces, and structures (Gregory & Urry, 1985). Using various theoretical lenses, spatial relations between wealthy "cores" and impover- ished "peripheries," for example, have been explained as manifestations of capital- ism's tendency to geographically uneven development (Smith, 1990). At the

metropolitan scale, spatial relations between central cities and suburbs have been

understood as structured in part by patriarchal gender divisions of urban space (McDowell, 1983). Even spatial relations between self and other, or us and them. have been seen as integral to how personal identities (situated "here") are built up in mirror-image to the often negative projections of attributes placed on others

(over "there"; Sibley, 1995). Animal geographers (especially zo6geographers) have often incorporated

notions of space, spatial patterns, and spatial relations into the heart of their

research, as revealed in maps of lairs, nests, flocks, herds, colonies and even

migration tracks of particular species. Such mapping, frequently linked to quanti- tative techniques such as point pattern analysis, typically strive to correlate animal

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distributions with patterns of climatic variation, geologic formations, and vegeta- tive cover, in a search for general zoogeographical laws of how animals (individu- als and species) arrange themselves across the earth's surface.

Work undertaken by cultural animal geographers has focused on space, but not

in the conventional scientific sense of searching for spatial laws. Indeed, of key concern are spatial relations between people and animals, thought of in terms of

either exclusion or inclusion (managing physical distance between people and

certain animals). At a macro-scale these relations effectively consign animals

identified as wild to a wilderness beyond human civilization; their transgressions of the wilderness boundary - a case of matter "out of place" (Cresswell, 1996) - can lead to murderous reprisals from the human community (Emel, 1995; Wolch et al.,

1995). Alternatively, these relations can entail the welcoming of animals conceived

to be tame into the home, yard, and immediate residential neighborhood as

companion animals. Curiously, should such animals escape to the wild and become

feral, they are typically regarded as transgressive. Between these two extremes lie

those animals regarded as domesticated, possessing utility as food and other

products, which are allocated to such specialist locations as farms, fields, markets, and abattoirs where they are supposed to spend their days from birth to death. Such

spatial relations are made more complex in many ways, not least by the agency of

animals themselves.

It is one task of the new animal geography to explore the complex nexus of

spatial relations between people and animals. The goal is to tease out the myriad economic, political, social, and cultural pressures shaping these relations with

reference to both particular groupings of people and particular species of animals.

Thus Anderson (1997) reassesses the traditional geographical interpretations of

domestication and reinterprets some of this deeply entrenched pattern of human-

animal relations through a political and socio-cultural lens. Looking at the geogra-

phy of domestic animals in the late 20th century, Ufkes (1995) explains dramatic

locational shifts in the US livestock sector on the basis of globalization-driven intensive farming and new levels of consumer demand for both lean meat and cheap meat (the latter associated with increasing income disparities). She also zeroes in

on corporate efforts at harnessing biotechnology "to build a better pig" - leaner and

faster growing. Such efforts to alter the interior geography of the animal body have

devastating implications for animal well-being. Other researchers focus on deep- seated politico-religious conflicts around society-animal relations. Robbins ( 1998)

explains how the ancient religious ideals of Hindu vegetarianism have become

ideological weapons in an ongoing (and often violent) struggle over political control in Rajistan. Muslim livestock farmers and butchers in Rajistan, who have

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few alternatives to entering a globalizing meat industry, are caught in the middle

of this Hindu-Muslim power struggle.

Employing both metaphoric and material conceptions of space, other cultural

animal geographers seek to illuminate human-animal relations. One approach is to

trace the pervasive but often hidden networks binding an animal shot in the wild.

a science laboratory, a variety of corporate offices great and small, a high street

retail outlet, a private kitchen and the like. Such research, inspired by Latour's «

actor-network theory (Whatmore, 1997; Whatmore & Thome, 1998), deploys a

strong sense of spatial relations while also illuminating the myriad documents and

multiple devices which enable such relations to be traced across the globe. A further

line of inquiry has narrowed the lens to more intimate spaces such as home, garden, and neighborhood park, asking about their roles in shaping society-animal rela-

tions. Wolch (1996) suggests that contemporary cities, which exclude so many animals from their midst, promote a profound emotional distanciation between

people and animals that under-girds routine practices of extermination and habitat

destruction. Recreating small-scale urban sites where people and animals might interact on a daily basis, forging what Wolch terms "zoopolis," would enable

residents to adopt "animal standpoints" and enter into interspecific networks of

friendship capable of breaking down city-country dualisms so destructive of animal l

life-chances.

Place, Region and Landscape

A second geographical concept is place, deployed to capture the situated, material

dimensions of space. The concept of place is not relative, but absolute: it describes

the particularities of singular, unique, nameable settings where phenomena, natural

and human, together create a distinctive assemblage which is clearly "this place" (Manchester, the Algarve, Las Vegas) rather than any other. Although notions of

place have also been debated within academic geography (Duncan, 1994; Entrikin,

1991; Relph, 1976), the tradition of focusing on differences between places, and

spotlighting place-specific features, has an even older pedigree than does the spatial l

tradition. Thus geographers have often paid special attention to the diverse

elements which combine to create the visual impression of distinctiveness for a

given place, and one result is interest in the visible landscape as an object to be

perceived, enjoyed, and analyzed. As spatial science grew more dominant in the 1960s and 1970s, the analysis of

place receded, regarded as merely descriptive and thus pre-scientific. By the 1980s,

however, energized by trends in psychology, the philosophies of meaning and

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cultural studies, fresh ideas about the centrality of place to human experience, emotion, and ideology began to influence human geography (Ley & Samuels,

1978). Questions to do with place, region, and landscape have acquired new

relevance to human geographers, stimulating research aimed at teasing out the

meanings - deeply existential and more overtly politicized, loving and antagonis-

tic, shared and conflicting - which people attach to places where they live, work,

play, and travel. Linked to recent work on spatial relations, contemporary geo-

graphical studies show how place-based struggles, identities, and politics are

integral to wider societal processes, forces, and structures (Agnew, 1987). Animal geographers have often incorporated notions of place and related

categories into their research. For instance, zobgeographers look in detail at the

associations of particular animal species found in particular places of the world.

Intriguingly, Davies ( 1961, p. 415) distinguishes between ecology as the study of

place - those local mixes of environmental factors attracting given animal species to settle in given places - and geography as the study of space. Quite a few

zo6geographical studies do indeed concentrate on particular places, sometimes at

the regional scale but more commonly focussing on smaller habitat patches. One

example is Carter's ( 1997) recent inquiry into the wedge-tailed shearwaters of

Heron Island, off the Australian coast, in which she also focuses on the very specific nest-site selections of these puffins (thus drawing attention to even smaller places on this island).

Work undertaken by cultural animal geographers has also given consideration

to place. Several such studies emphasize how environmental, economic, political. social, and cultural contexts underlie place-specific society-animal relations and

how they are negotiated and transformed over time. The argument is that these

relations are differentially constituted in different places, forming a complex

geography which can, in principle, be mapped out onto the places, regions, and

landscapes spread across the earth's surface.

Especially illustrative of such work is Matless' ( 1994) detailed research on the

"place" of animals in the Norfolk Broads, a series of shallow lakes with their linking rivers in eastern England, often used for sailing, cruising, shooting, and bird

watching. Drawing on the idea of a "moral geography," Matless investigates the

constellations of ideas about how human life should be lived in relation to given environments, i.e. specific blueprints or codes for local conduct. He documents the

cross-cutting "cultures of nature" - some predicated on violence and hunting. others on a preservationist approach "warranting quiet observation rather than loud

killing" (1994, p.141 ). Both have decisively shaped local society-animal relations

in the Broadlands for much of the present century.

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Philo ( 1995) and Gullo, Lassiter and Wolch (1998), who set their studies in

19th century London and late 20th century southern California respectively, do not

offer such a sustained place-centered account. Nonetheless, their findings are

intimately wrapped up in the details of place. Philo's place is a crazily congested Victorian commercial capital faced with the unsettling sights and sounds of live

meat markets, with their cursing drovers and stampeding bullocks. In contrast.

Gullo et al. focus on an exploding American "exopolis" swiftly encroaching on

nearby chaparral wildlands and pine-forested mountains, home to cougars, coyo- tes, and bears. Similarly, Proctor's (1998; Proctor & Pincetl, 1996) work on the

controversy surrounding spotted owls and old growth forest is not only rooted in

the actual landscape of the Pacific Northwest, complete with its declining timber

regions, but also in the moral geography discursively created around the owl itself.

In late 20th century Pacific Northwest, the owl symbolizes the sagacity of nature

for some but the collapse of community for others (the latter being used to

legitimate killing individual owls). In her study of culture and nature at the Adelaide

Zoo, Anderson explicitly states that "[i]f the zoo is a 'space', Adelaide Zoo is a

`place"' (1995, p.280). By this, she indicates a parallel movement between

advancing claims about zoos as pivotal sites in the cultural construction of nature.

and also of colonial and ultimately national identity, and grounding particular claims in the historical-geographical specificity of the Adelaide enterprise.

Paralleling research on the more intimate spaces of society-animal relations.

other cultural animal geographers have considered how small-scale places shape the emotional bonds between people and animals, influencing larger political

spheres in which decisions about conservation and habitat protection are made.

Michel (1998) highlights the case of volunteers working to rehabilitate golden

eagles in the fast-shrinking chaparral wildlands of San Diego, California. Drawing

upon feminist insights, Michel reveals how an alternative "politics of care"

emerges from the daily practices of rehabilitation far removed from the public realm of land-use planning, so dominated by a technocratic discourse alienated

from the realities of injured and dying eagles. This place-based politics of care is

played out in local schools and other community institutions - in the form of environmental education - and serves to prompt new directions for environmental

activism in general.

The Present Special Theme Issue

The four articles that constitute this issue approach animal geographies at multiple

spatial scales, viewed through several theoretical lenses, and with varying empha-

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sis on animals as active subjects, elements of nature, and cultural symbols. Anderson reconsiders the geography of animal domestication, situating certain

chapters of the domestication story in European political discourses about human

uniqueness. Arguing that domestication cannot be fully understood by recourse to

traditional cultural ecology frameworks that treat animals as natural resources, she

draws upon theories of power and identity to make sense of this process. Ultimately, she contends that domestication concretized a dualistic model of human and animal l

in western cultures, with the case of the Adelaide Zoo highlighting how domesti-

cation underlies contradictory human-animal relations played out at various spatial scales and in particular geographic places.

The second paper deals with specific domesticated animals and their changing

relationship to people in rural Britain. Yarwood and Evans consider how recent and

fundamental shifts in capitalist agricultural systems have stimulated rural decline

and, in response, efforts to reinvigorate the countryside economy through

agrotourism. In this context, family farms have become theme parks and resorts,

where old, rare, and endangered breeds of livestock are not only star attractions (and

thus, increasingly, precious commodities) but also powerful - and fungible -

symbols of cultural heritage. Strategies for the protection of rare breeds, along with

the rise of agrotourism, have altered the spatial distribution of rare breeds and

transformed the links between breeds, place, and culture.

Next, Thome moves us down and around the globe to the Antipodes, with her

analysis of the worldwide trade in kangaroo bodies. Justified by their historical

construction as a "pest" species by rural farmers, along with a popular "spatial

imaginary" or conception of kangaroos - fecund and abundant - roaming a vast.

empty and uninterrupted national territory, tens of thousands of kangaroos are shot

each year. This is despite increasing loss and fragmentation of kangaroo habitat.

and despite the animal's status as a powerful tourist attraction and symbol of

Australian nationhood familiar worldwide. Drawing on Latour's actor network

theory, Thorne traces the set of complex relations that bind kangaroos to each other.

and link their slaughter to a wide range of far-flung human actors and institutions.

Ironically, the perceived abundance of kangaroos makes them a non-issue for

conservationists, whose frameworks for wildlife protection only bestow value on

the rare or endangered. In the final contribution, Elder, Wolch and Emel consider how culture-specific

human-animal relations or, simply, animal practices are molded by place and

environment, and legitimated over time. They argue that as the "empire comes

home" in the form of international migration to the west, and as cultural diversity increases under conditions of postmodemity, decontextualized "out-of-place"

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animal practices risk being interpreted as transgressions of the human-animal

divide. Divergent animal practices and norms of cruelty and harm can thus trigger social conflict and racialization of subaltern groups. To counter such marginal ization. Elder, Wolch and Emel recommend a "pratique sauvage" or radical democracy that

encompasses not only subaltern people but animals too.

We hope that the readers of Society & Animals will agree that a geographical

perspective can make important theoretical, empirical, and policy-relevant contri-

butions to research on society-animal relations. It is in this spirit (rather than any sense of disciplinary imperialism) that the current theme issue has been assembled.

We trust that in the articles which follow, readers will find much of intrinsic interest

but also discover what a cultural animal geography can achieve.

Note

1. Correspondence should be directed to Jennifer Wolch, Department of Geography. University of Southern California, University Park, Los Angeles, California 90089-0255.

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