Tuomas Räsänen - Shared Lives of Humans and Animals: Animal Agency in the Global North

Animals are conscious beings that form their own perspective regarding the life-worlds in which they exist, and according to which they act in relation to their species and other animals. In recent decades a thorough transformation in societal research has taken place, as many groups that were previously perceived as being passive or subjugated objects have become active subjects. This fundamental reassessment, first promoted by feminist and radical studies, has subsequently been followed by spatial and material turns that have brought non-human agency to the fore. In humananimal relations, despite a power imbalance, animals are not mere objects but act as agents. They shape our material world and our encounters with them influence the way we think about the world and ourselves.

This book focuses on animal agency and interactions between humans and animals. It explores the reciprocity of humananimal relations and the capacity of animals to act and shape human societies. The chapters draw on examples from the Global North to explore how human life in modernity has been and is shaped by the sentience, autonomy, and physicality of various animals, particularly in landscapes where communities and wild animals exist in close proximity. It offers a timely contribution to animal studies, environmental geography, environmental history, and social science and humanities studies of the environment more broadly.

Tuomas Rsnen is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of European and World History at the University of Turku, Finland. His research interests include animal history, environmental history and history of science. He has published several articles concerning the history of marine sciences and politics in the Baltic Sea area and the history of Finnish environmentalism.

Taina Syrjmaa is Professor of European and World History at the University of Turku, Finland. She has studied urban history, the history of the exhibition medium, the belief in progress, historical spatiality and diffuse agency. She is currently leading the research project Animal Agency in Human Society.

Professor of Geography, University of Exeter, UK

The new Routledge HumanAnimal Studies Series offers a much-needed forum for original, innovative and cutting-edge research and analysis to explore humananimal relations across the social sciences and humanities. Titles within the series are empirically and/or theoretically informed and explore a range of dynamic, captivating and highly relevant topics, drawing across the humanities and social sciences in an avowedly interdisciplinary perspective. This series will encourage new theoretical perspectives and highlight ground-breaking research that reflects the dynamism and vibrancy of current animal studies. The series is aimed at upper-level undergraduates, researchers and research students as well as academics and policy-makers across a wide range of social science and humanities disciplines.

Critical Animal Geographies: Politics, Intersections and Hierarchies in a Multispecies World

Edited by Kathryn Gillespie and Rosemary-Claire Collard

Urban Animals: Crowding in Zoocities

Tora Holmberg

Affect, Space and Animals

Edited by Jopi Nyman and Nora Schuurman

Animal Housing and HumanAnimal Relations: Politics, Practices and Infrastructures

Edited by Kristian Bjrkdahl and Tone Druglitr

Shared Lives of Humans and Animals: Animal Agency in the Global North

Edited by Tuomas Rsnen and Taina Syrjmaa

First published 2017
by Routledge
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2017 selection and editorial matter, Tuomas Rsnen and Taina Syrjmaa; individual chapters, the contributors

The right of Tuomas Rsnen and Taina Syrjmaa to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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ISBN: 978-0-415-41925-3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-22876-1 (ebk)

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TUOMAS RSNEN AND TAINA SYRJMAA

LEENA KOSKI AND PIA BCKLUND

STELLA HOCKENHULL

NORA SCHUURMAN

RIITTA-MARJA LEINONEN

TAINA SYRJMAA

JOHN MARTIN

TUOMAS RSNEN

JULIE RAYMOND-YAKOUBIAN AND VERNAE ANGNABOOGOK

KIRSI SONCK-RAUTIO

JUKKA NYYSSNEN

LINDA KALOF, CAMERON WHITLEY, STEPHEN VRLA, AND JESSICA BELL RIZZOLO

KARIN DIRKE

OUTI AUTTI

J. DWIGHT HINES

HARRIET RITVO

Vernae Angnaboogok is from Wales, Alaska, traditionally known as Kiigin, an Iupiaq village located at the northwestern most tip of the Seward Peninsula. Her family instilled in her the passion for learning and embracing the Iupiaq way of life. She contributed to the research as an independent researcher from the University of Alaska Fairbanks Rural Development program and as an intern with the Kawerak Social Science Program.

Outi Autti is a postdoctoral researcher at the Arctic University of Norway in Troms (UiT). Previously she has worked in various positions at the University of Oulu, Finland. Her research fields are environmental sociology, rural sociology, cultural studies, and human geography. She studies the social dimensions of environmental and cultural change in northern communities.

Pia Bcklund is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Tampere, School of Management. Her research themes have addressed a wide scope of issues concerning planning theories, democracy, participation, local development projects, knowledge management, and political subjectivity of animals.

Karin Dirke is an associate professor/senior lecturer in History of Ideas at the Department of Culture and Aesthetics, Stockholm University. Her research mainly concerns humananimal studies and she has published several works on the historical relationships between humans and other animals, both wild and domestic.