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

277 Pages·2017·2.44 MB·English

by  Tuomas Räsänen

Shared Lives of Humans and Animals
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 human–animal 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 human–animal 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 Räsänen 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 Syrjämaa 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.”
Routledge Human–Animal Studies Series
Series edited by Henry Buller
Professor of Geography, University of Exeter, UK
The new Routledge Human–Animal Studies Series offers a much-needed forum
for original, innovative and cutting-edge research and analysis to explore
human–animal 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 Human–Animal Relations: Politics, Practices and
Infrastructures Edited by Kristian Bjørkdahl and Tone Druglitrø Shared Lives
of Humans and Animals: Animal Agency in the Global North Edited by
Tuomas Räsänen and Taina Syrjämaa
Shared Lives of Humans and
Animals
Animal Agency in the Global North
Edited by Tuomas Räsänen and
Taina Syrjämaa

First published 2017
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2017 selection and editorial
matter, Tuomas Räsänen and Taina Syrjämaa; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Tuomas
Räsänen and Taina Syrjämaa 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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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in
Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 978-0-415-41925-3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-22876-1 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman
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Contents
List of Illustrations
Notes on Contributors
Acknowledgements
Introduction
TUOMAS RÄSÄNEN AND TAINA SYRJÄMAA
PART I
Co-Living Individuals
1 Whose Agency? Humans and Dogs in Training
LEENA KOSKI AND PIA BÄCKLUND
2 Human and Non-Human Agency in Icelandic Film: Of Horses and Men
STELLA HOCKENHULL
3 Horses as Co-Constructors of Knowledge in Contemporary Finnish
Equestrian Culture
NORA SCHUURMAN
4 Living with Horses: Horse Agency in Human–Horse Cohabitation in
Nineteenth-Century Finnish Swidden Culture
RIITTA-MARJA LEINONEN
5 Spectacles of Modern Companionship: Men, Dogs and Early Finnish
Dog Shows
TAINA SYRJÄMAA
PART II
Interspecies Communities
6 Case Study of a Changing Human–Animal Relationship: Wild Rabbits
in Britain from the Nineteenth Century to the Onset of Myxomatosis
JOHN MARTIN
7 Does a Dead Wild Animal Have Agency? The White-Tailed Eagle as a
Catalyst for an Ideational Revolution in Finland
TUOMAS RÄSÄNEN
8 Cosmological Changes: Shifts in Human–Fish Relationships in
Alaska’s Bering Strait Region
JULIE RAYMOND-YAKOUBIAN AND VERNAE ANGNABOOGOK
9 The Baltic Herring as Agents in the Socio-Ecological System in
Rymättylä Fisheries
KIRSI SONCK-RAUTIO
PART III
Agency Represented
10 Rangifer Tarandus in Textual Service: Positioning Reindeer as an
Agent in a Human/Non-Human Interactional Context in Three Texts
JUKKA NYYSSÖNEN
11 Anthropogenic Food Sources in the Co-Existence of Humans with
Liminal Animals in Northern Environments: Representations from
National Geographic Magazine
LINDA KALOF, CAMERON WHITLEY, STEPHEN VRLA, AND JESSICA BELL RIZZOLO
12 Changing Narratives of Human: Large Carnivore Encounters in
Nineteenth-Century Sweden
KARIN DIRKE
13 The Wise Salmon That Returned Home
OUTI AUTTI
14 The Co-Living of Humans and Wolves in the Greater Yellowstone
Ecosystem
J. DWIGHT HINES
Epilogue
HARRIET RITVO
Index