The Biogeographies of the Blue Bird-of-Paradise: From Sexual Selection to Sex and the City

Patchett, Merle M

doi:10.1093/jsh/shz013

Cited by 10 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 46 publications

(20 reference statements)

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“…Production, circulation and consumption of fur tells of colonial expansionary capitalism and (near) extinction (Collard, 2018;Kleibert et al, 2020). Feathers, body parts and bodies preserved through taxidermy reveal the reach of human-animal relations, including in imperialism, landownership, blood-sport and fashion (Pacault and Patchett, 2016;Patchett, 2017Patchett, , 2019.…”

Section: Killingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Animal geographies II: Killing and caring (in times of crisis)

Gibbs

2020

Progress in Human Geography

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Humans kill and care for animals in a multitude of contexts. These themes – killing and caring – form the focus of this second report on animal geographies research. Most notably, killing and caring take place through conservation and the production and consumption of food. Other realms of recent research include killing through climate change, formal arrangements of care, how animals are made killable, and the significance of the individual and collective. Further to these two major themes, the review identifies other approaches to animal geographies research in recent years; namely, political and relational. Finally, the propensity for humans to kill and care for animals is highlighted by crisis. I open and close the review by considering connections between animals and two contemporary emergencies: the fires that burned south-eastern Australia over summer 2019–20 and the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Section: Killingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Animal geographies II: Killing and caring (in times of crisis)

Gibbs

2020

Progress in Human Geography

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“…Geographers conduct research on “lively commodities,” including the wild pet trade, wildlife tourism, and the metabolic, ecological, and affective labour of animals central to capital accumulation (Barua, 2019; Collard, 2014; Collard & Dempsey, 2013). In addition to this work on “lively commodities” is geographical research on animal products (or the products of dead animals), including meat, fur, and feathers and the conditions of their production and consumption (Arcari et al, 2020; Kleibert et al, 2020; Patchett, 2019; Stoddard & Hovorka, 2019). Both forms of commodity—living and dead—are pertinent here, and so too the insights they afford.…”

Section: The Animal Marketmentioning

confidence: 99%

COVID‐19 and the animals

Gibbs

2022

Geographical Research

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COVID-19 has brought the human world to crisis. This work examines how nonhuman animals are also connected to the pandemic in three ways that emerged early in the crisis. First, COVID-19 is a zoonotic disease that reached humans via nonhuman animal hosts. Animal geographers and others cast light on the spread and control of animal diseases and on the "almost animal," including the microorganism. Second, the outbreak is understood to have transferred to humans in a market selling live animals in Wuhan, China. Disputes over the source of the outbreak signal the complexity that characterises the commodification of animals. Third, social restrictions have seen city streets empty of people. In the ensuing quiet, unexpected animals have entered cities or begun to behave differently. The arrivals, and the wonder they have sparked among people, raise questions about who and what is deemed to belong in the city. This commentary aims to unpack how geographers and those in related fields might turn to the animals to analyse and respond to the pandemic and other disasters. Through these three case studies, I find that the lives of human and nonhuman animals are deeply connected, and yet relations are characterised by separation and objectification. I argue for further relational and political work to more deeply understand connections and their implications.

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“…But the bathroom scene suggests that an imperial geographical gaze -a top-down map of the world, of routes from South America to England -in fact precedes even language, as Paddington writes his "new" English name written with the dregs of Mr Brown's shaving cream only after the map is complete. Paddington's map is a trace of the earlier colonial encounter between his aunt and uncle and the unnamed English explorer, whose geographical pedagogy "forces Latin Americans to see ourselves as they see us" (Dorfman & Mattleart, 1971/2019.…”

Section: Colonised Ambivalencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Even the construction of Paddington's geographical aetiology -he hails from "darkest Peru" -draws on a reservoir of colonial discourse, transposing the racist trope of "darkness" from Africa to South America to account for the extinction of North African Atlas Bears in the 19th century (Driver, 2001;McDougall, 2017). Such arguments draw on the long tradition of ideology critique in the study of children's literature (Dorfman & Mattelart, 1971/2019 This paper holds anticolonial literary readings of the Paddington narrative in tension with a geographical approach that is no less committed to a politics of decolonisation, but remains attuned to ambivalence, contradiction, and the situated character of each creative reprisal of a colonial encounter (McKittrick, 2021;Phillips, 1997Phillips, , 2001. Analysing the salience of plantation geographies for understanding the production of Blackness and anti-Blackness throughout modernity, McKittrick argues carefully that prisons and dispossessed, racialised urban spaces "mimic, but do not twin" (2011, p. 955) the plantation.…”

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confidence: 99%

‘You're stuffed, bear!’: Geography's colonial legacies in the ‘Paddington Empire’

Seitz

2021

Trans Inst British Geog

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As academic geographers continue to investigate popular geographical knowledges and imaginations beyond the bounds of academic publications, less attention has been given to moments when popular geographies reverse the gaze, expressly lifting the curtain on the production of knowledge by those of us who call ourselves professional geographers. What could turning to popular culture tell professional geographers about perceptions of our discipline, its history of complicity with imperialism, and its practices of knowledge production? This paper offers some partial answers by turning to an English popular cultural metaseries that is remarkably explicit and dynamic in its depiction of geography: Michael Bond's Paddington Bear franchise, or as Bond ironically referred to it, the “Paddington Empire.” From the very first Paddington story published in 1958 to the 2014 feature film, the Paddington franchise scrutinises geography and stages the work of professional geographical institutions, from the Royal Geographical Society to the imaginary “Geographers' Guild of Great Britain.” Drawing on archival work in Bond's collected papers, interviews, contextualising scholarship, journalism, and careful readings of the Paddington texts, I argue that the Paddington Empire iteratively reprises colonial encounters, at times in troubling ways, but also offers insightful critiques of extractive forms of geographical knowledge production.

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The Biogeographies of the Blue Bird-of-Paradise: From Sexual Selection to Sex and the City

Abstract: Environmental Humanities Public Lecture series and I am indebted to Kate Rigby for the invitation and to the audience for their insights and help in refining my arguments. I also thank Susan Woodruff, administrator of JSH, for her invaluable assistance.

Cited by 10 publications

References 46 publications

Animal geographies II: Killing and caring (in times of crisis)

Animal geographies II: Killing and caring (in times of crisis)

COVID‐19 and the animals

‘You're stuffed, bear!’: Geography's colonial legacies in the ‘Paddington Empire’

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