Checkpoint dogs: Photovoicing canine companionship in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone

Abstract

The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone is often depicted as either a wildlife refuge or an apocalyptic wasteland, which is representative of the ongoing scientific controversy regarding the effects of the 1986 nuclear catastrophe on nature in the Zone. In this article, the filthy/flourishing binary is disrupted by attending to the everyday human‐dog relations that have emerged in the Zone between dogs ‐ some of which are likely descendants of pets originally abandoned during the evacuation in 1986 ‐ and checkpoint guards. Participatory photography is deployed as method. Themes of companionship, care and commensality emerge alongside a discussion of the nature of Chernobyl dogs, which is invoked in discourses surrounding their apparent wildness, territoriality and adaptation to radiation.

On “Finishing”

“…As such, auto‐photography renders visible so‐called hidden relations and socialities and, in doing so, makes possible deeper ways to access how participants “understand and interpret the world and their place within it” (Johnsen, May, and Cloke 2008, 195). From the “photo response” study of home among families in Bangladesh by urban geographers Ashraful Alam, Andrew McGregor, and Donna Houston (2018) that maps out the affective socialities that can be explored through the process of image production to anthropologist Jonathon Turnbull’s “photo‐voice” that examines the contested nature of care and nonhuman belonging in toxic landscapes (2020), visual methods illuminate the ways that nonhuman others communicate relations, places, and practices. As scholars in social planning and geography Sarah Johnsen, Jon May, and Paul Cloke (2008) note, the analysis of participant photographs reveals not only the interpretations, but also the intentions of the author, which are typically explored in a follow‐up photo elicitation interview.…”

On the role of technology in human-dog relationships: a future filled with dreams or nightmares?

“…Technology, effectively, is conceptualized as a negative force with the potential to lead to a nightmare scenario where it disentangles us and takes away the benefits that our multispecies households give us-the companionship, entertainment, and protection that provides us with a mutual multi-faceted security in our own mental and physical lives (cf. Turnbull, 2020 ).…”

“…Studies of the human-dog relationship have built a rich understanding of how we co-exist (cf. Mullin, 1999;Walsh, 2009;Gray & Young;2011;Shir-Vertesh, 2012;Blouin, 2013;Gee & Mueller, 2019;Westgarth et al, 2019;Turnbull, 2020;Hawkins et al, 2021). Over the past decade, research attention into digital technologies that inform and complement human-dog relationships has similarly intensified, exploring anywhere from communication technologies (Paldanius et al, 2011;Lemasson, Pesty, & Duhaut, 2013), to monitoring and quantification (Golbeck & Neustaedter, 2012;Paasovaara et al, 2011;Weiss et al, 2013), to technology-mediated dog to dog communication (Hirskyj-Douglas et al, 2019;.…”

Population dynamics and genome-wide selection scan for dogs in Chernobyl

“…Though Chernobyl wildlife has been the subject of previous ecological and genetic studies (e.g., [22][23][24]), little is known about the genetics of a population of over 500 dogs occupying the area surrounding the CNPP and Chernobyl City. This dog population has expanded in the decades following the accident and is thought to be comprised at least partially of descendants of pets left behind during the chaotic evacuation in 1986 [25]. In this scenario, it is intriguing to understand to what extent the descendants of these abandoned dogs have adapted to survive and sustain a growing population under these extreme environmental conditions.…”