Descrizione del progetto
I cani e i topi condizionano la sicurezza e la salute pubblica
Gli animali svolgono un ruolo importante nel creare e trasformare le disuguaglianze urbane. Ad esempio, i cani impiegati per garantire la sicurezza sono stati addestrati per identificare individui pericolosi sulla base di marcatori di classe e di razza, mentre i topi prosperano nelle zone a basso reddito con infrastrutture igienico-sanitarie degradate. In questo contesto, il progetto ANIMAPOLIS, finanziato dall’UE, risponderà al seguente interrogativo: in che modo le interazioni degli animali con gli esseri umani e le infrastrutture concorrono a generare una distribuzione impari dei rischi e delle risorse negli spazi e nelle popolazioni urbane? Più nel concreto, il progetto si interrogherà sui meccanismi attraverso cui i cani impiegati per garantire la sicurezza potrebbero co-produrre pratiche di profilazione razziale o sul modo in cui la distribuzione di topi e rodenticidi condiziona gli esiti di salute pubblica. ANIMALPOLIS svilupperà un confronto qualitativo bidirezionale tra diversi contesti urbani e vari animali, sulla scia delle etnografie multispecie di Amsterdam e Rio de Janeiro.
Obiettivo
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 project’s 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.
Campo scientifico
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Programma(i)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Argomento(i)
Meccanismo di finanziamento
HORIZON-AG - HORIZON Action Grant Budget-BasedIstituzione ospitante
1012WX Amsterdam
Paesi Bassi