Buildingwithwildlife: project geographies and cosmopolitics in infrastructure construction

Abstract

Across many construction projects, and especially infrastructure projects, efforts to mitigate potential loss of biodiversity and habitat are significant concerns, and at times politically controversial. And yet, thus far, very little research has addressed the interplay of humans and animals within construction projects. Instead those interested in the politics and ethics of human-animal relations, or Animal Studies, have arguably focussed far more on more stable and contained sites, whether organisations like zoos, farms or laboratories, or other places like homes and parks. These largely ethnographic studies inevitably perhaps downplay the unplanned, unexpected and highly politically and ethically charged, collision of hitherto rather separate human and animal geographies. Yet, as we argue here, it is often within such colliding spaces, where animal geographies are unexpectedly found at the heart of human projects, that we formulate our respect and response to both animals, and indeed other humans. Here we examine such encounters conceptually, with reference to ActorNetwork Theory, and empirically, through case study analysis of two infrastructure projects. In doing so, we highlight the relevance of our analysis to both construction project management and other animal studies.

Notes on the Threats to the Endemic Bengal Mongoose from the Nalban Fisheries Complex in West Bengal, India

“…It is impossible for the Bengal mongoose to dig a burrow in the hard concrete. Therefore, the construction should be mindfully done so that the mongooses can make its burrows, even artificial burrows can be considered as an alternative (Brenneisen, 2006;Sage et al, 2014).…”

The Eclosion of Forest and Tree Health Stakeholdership

“…Furthermore, if the systemic environmental problems we are facing today have been caused by a failure to consider non-humans, then stakeholder management that continues to do so is bound to fail. To date, applications of the stakeholdership concept to non-humans remain rare, although Tryggestad et al (2013) and Sage et al (2014) engaged with the concept to show how animals can become salient within construction projects. This work demonstrates the limitations of existing ways of incorporating non-humans within established processes, such as environmental impact assessment, and highlights the need for their transformation.…”

Client engagement and building design: the view from actor–network theory

“…In Harty (2005Harty ( , 2008, the broader issue was innovation, for Lingard et al (2012) it was occupational health and safety (OHS) and in Tryggestad et al (2010) it was project goals. Other construction topics examined from an ANT perspective include: Alderman and Ivory (2011) on the role of the project manager and Sage et al (2014) on the way that animals shape the specification of project boundaries. What all of these studies share is a focus on the multiplicity and diversity of actors (including nonhuman actors) who make a difference for the problem at hand, a study of the processes of association and dis-association (rather than the actors themselves) and an emphasis on the contingency and uncertainty of these processes.…”