Environmental justice in a multispecies city. Othering, governing and resistance of abject and protected animals

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Robert Pütz
• Subject Area: Human Geography
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 512513565

Climate change, urbanisation and other factors threaten the living conditions of species worldwide. In view of this, there are increasing calls for cities (and other hitherto exclusively human spaces) to be understood as "shared habitats" and for hitherto purely social-scientific concepts such as right to the city or environmental justice to be thought of as "more-than-human". The project takes this up and asks in a fundamental way how society-wildlife relations in the urban context can be taken into account by human geography. Accordingly, the three guiding questions are: 1) What are conceptually justifiable and empirically realisable starting points for the analysis of shared habitats in the urban context? 2) Can initial empirical findings be identified on the main factors influencing society-wildlife relations in urban space? 3) How can human-geographical concepts and methods of society-space analysis be transferred to society-animal relations and where are the limits? Three analytical categories are proposed for analysis: Othering asks how social discourses problematise wild urban animals. Governing asks how such attributions are reflected in concrete policies, and Resistance looks at the "resistances" of everyday practice - of the animals themselves, but especially of human-wildlife encounters - that challenge discourses and policies and produce new forms of knowledge concerning the city as a horny habitat. The viability of the categories is tested by applying them to two very contrasting "groups" of wild animals: Abject animals as the classic outside of urban society (pigeons, rats, invasive species) and protected animals, which are addressed in various ways as desirable co-inhabitants. The case study is Frankfurt am Main.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants