Recasting Our Wild Neighbours: Contesting Legal Otherness in Urban Human-Animal Conflicts
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RECASTING OUR WILD NEIGHBOURS:
CONTESTING LEGAL OTHERNESS IN URBAN
HUMAN-ANIMAL CONFLICTS
MANEESHA DECKHA & ERIN PRITCHARD,
INTRODUCTION
Discussions of human-animal urban co-existence often characterize
relationships between the two as conflict-laden, generally locating
animals on the losing side.1 This type of framing is unfortunate-both
for how it positions animals and also for how it imagines humans
vis-a-vis animals. It is a framing that is undergirded by a centuries-old
binary in cultures dominated by Western intellectual traditions where
humans are sharply distinguished from all other animals and nature is
sharply distinguished from culture. These oppressive binaries-and
the concept of wildness that circulates within them-infuse
human-human relations as well. In fact, the use of animal and wildness
imagery to dehumanize (and thus degrade) certain human bodies has
made the division between human and non-human animals particularly
ingrained. When legal and policy actors rely on terms such as wildlife
Maneesha Deckha, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Victoria. Erin
Pritchard, Lawyer, Vancouver. The authors gratefully acknowledge research support
from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council.
See e.g. Wency Leung, Man v. Raccoon: Which Side Are You On? The Globe
and Mail (2 June 2011), online: <www.theglobeandmail.com>. Similar rhetoric
is evident in scientific texts that purport to be focused on the lives of animals.
See Victoria M Lukasik & Shelley M Alexander, Human-Coyote Interactions
in Calgary, Alberta (2011) 16:2 Human Dimensions of Wildlife 114 (which
begins with the statement that [h]umans have a long history of conflict with
coyotes at 114).](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/ubclr49&div=8&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Recasting Our Wild Neighbours: Contesting Legal Otherness in Urban Human-Animal Conflicts
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