Snaebjornsdottir, Bryndis and Wilson, Mark
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4123-2118
(2008)
Pests, pets and prey: uncertainty in the city.
In: Royal Geographical Society Annual International Conference, 27-29 August 2008, London, UK.
(Unpublished)
Full text not available from this repository.
Abstract
Long ago, settlements and therefore latterly, cities were predicated on the concept of refuge and a physical division of culture and nature. Clearly such division has proved increasingly porous as more and more animals and birds consider concentrations of human population an attraction rather than a deterrent because of the opportunities such culture provides in terms of habitat and feeding. For some, the presence of these creatures – pigeons, starlings, rats, mice, foxes, and all manner of insects is a threat of some kind, a kind of leakage and therefore a representation of the fragility of our insulation from the ‘wild’, the unpredictability and ‘chaos’ of ‘nature’. This art project explores specific perceptions and limits of tolerance and ‘animal infringement’ in the city of Lancaster building a picture of local human behaviour towards animals and the environment – of tolerance and intolerance, of fear and loathing, affection, conflict, pathos and admiration. What is conspicuously at play is a continual conflict over territory. During our research we’ve observed ambivalence and contradictory vested interests in relation to a wide range of creatures. Most significant is the mixture of responses, the paradoxical nature of human attitudes towards agents of ‘the wild’ and the implicit cohesion-in-tension of the human/nature paradigm.
| Item Type: | Conference or Workshop Item (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Related URL(s): | |
| Departments: | Academic Departments > Institute of Arts (IOA) > Fine Arts |
| Depositing User: | Insight Administrator |
| Date Deposited: | 05 Mar 2012 14:55 |
| Last Modified: | 11 Jan 2024 20:46 |
| URI: | https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/1315 |
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