Project description
Dogs and rats affect security and public health
Animals play a role in producing and transforming urban inequalities. For instance, security dogs have been trained to detect threatening individuals on the basis of classed and raced markers. Rats thrive in low-income areas with decaying sanitation infrastructure. Against this background, the EU-funded ANIMAPOLIS project will answer the question: How do animals’ interactions with humans and infrastructures co-produce the unequal distribution of risks and resources across urban spaces and populations? More concretely, through what mechanisms might security dogs co-produce practices of racial profiling, or distributions of rats and rodenticides affect public health outcomes? The project will develop a two-way qualitative comparison between different urban contexts and between different animals, drawing on multispecies ethnographies in Amsterdam and Rio de Janeiro.
Objective
ANIMAPOLIS aims to understand the role of animals in the formation of urban inequalities, asking: How do animals interactions with humans and infrastructures co-produce the unequal distribution of risks and resources across urban spaces and populations? It focuses on two critical urban domains, security and public health, that are often characterized by stark inequalities, and takes the role of key animals within these domains dogs and rats, respectively as a unique analytical entry-point.
Urban inequalities are not only produced and transformed by people. Security dogs have been socialized to identify threatening individuals on the basis of classed and raced markers. Rats pose a public health risk, and thrive in low-income areas with decaying sanitation infrastructure. Urban scholars have recently begun to highlight the importance of infrastructures and technologies in configuring access to essential goods and services. While this research has provided key insights into how non-human entities mediate social relations, it has largely overlooked how animals, too, may co-produce inequalities.
While dogs and rats clearly play a role within security and public health, we know little about how they mediate urban inequalities related to these societal challenges. This project investigates such mechanisms by focusing first, on dogs and rats distinct biological specificities and cultural imaginations, and second, on the spatial, material and affective dimensions of their interactions with humans and infrastructure. The research design develops a two-way qualitative comparison, between different urban contexts and between different animals, through multispecies ethnographies of animal-human-infrastructure dynamics in Amsterdam and Philadelphia.
The projects more-than-human approach extends theoretical and methodological innovations within urban anthropology, geography and human-animal studies in order to open new horizons on the study of urban inequalities.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project's classification has been validated by the project's team.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project's classification has been validated by the project's team.
Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2021-ADG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
1012WX Amsterdam
Netherlands
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