The Posthuman City: San Diego'S Dead Animal Removal Program

Infrastructure and non-human life: A wider ontology

“…What this means in terms of an established protocol or method cannot be reified, but a number of basics can be put in place. First, it invites analysis of the dynamics of non-human (im)mobility and flow, where long-standing engagements with cosmopolitan faunas (Clark, 2002; Crosby, 2004) can be brought into conversation with phenomenological takes on animals’ mobilities (Hodgetts and Lorimer, 2018; Lulka, 2013) and the wider biopolitics of governing bio-circulations (Braun, 2007). Second, it draws attention to a whole new arena of planning and design that seek to administer other-than-human life and actualize worlds, whether in a mode that is techno-managerial (Grove et al, 2019) or cosmopolitical (Metzger, 2019).…”

Make kin, not cities! Multispecies entanglements and ‘becoming-world’ in planning theory

“…Stories of flying foxes – and those of other species who are pollinators, foragers, predators, parasites and mutualists – raise the significance of understanding expanded knots of biological and social connectivity in urban planning (Lulka, 2013). Human intervention may cause changes in ecosystem structure, often with disastrous results for humans and nonhumans: toxic algal blooms, trophic cascade, extinctions, plagues, contamination of food sources and so on (among many examples, Department of Agriculture and Food (DAF), 2015; Slezak, 2016).…”

“…Human intervention may cause changes in ecosystem structure, often with disastrous results for humans and nonhumans: toxic algal blooms, trophic cascade, extinctions, plagues, contamination of food sources and so on (among many examples, Department of Agriculture and Food (DAF), 2015; Slezak, 2016). Command-and-control responses to these impacts – such as spraying of waterways to control outbreaks of mosquitoes – further disrupt ecosystems and exacerbate malign ecological interactions (Lulka, 2013). 6 Visible nonhuman bodies (bats, bees, birds, plants) are frequently caught between contradictory discourses of belonging and invasiveness in urban contexts (McKiernan and Instone, 2015).…”

“…Within the fields of planning and urban studies, Jennifer Wolch’s (1998) Zoopolis (also 2002; Wolch et al, 1995) has been extended to critique and reimagine the role of ‘nature’ – including plants and ecosystems, as well as animals – in a range of practices and urban spaces (Asikainen and Jokinen, 2009; Holmberg, 2015; Leino et al, 2015; Lulka, 2013). Notions of entanglement and encounter are increasingly informing a rich set of engagements with plants as co-producers of urban space (Cook, 2004; Guitart et al, 2015; Head and Atchison, 2009; Jones and Instone, 2016; Rupprecht and Byrne, 2014).…”

“…The multifaceted environmental crises of the Anthropocene call for enlarged understandings of the entanglements between human and nonhuman worlds (Castree, 2014). Within the social sciences and humanities, including especially urban and cultural geography, a significant set of conversations about how humans should collectively respond to the Anthropocene is emerging under the banner of the ‘environmental humanities’ (Lulka, 2013; Ruddick, 2015; Sundberg, 2013). The common thread that runs through this literature is the Anthropocene as a cause for rethinking human–environment relationships – particularly those relationships that perpetuate the idea of human separation from the complex biophysical worlds that we inhabit (Davison, 2015).…”