S3E4: Urban Biopolitics with Krithika Srinivasan

Claudia talks to Krithika Srinivasan about the concept of biopolitics and how it could be used to understand multi-species urban relations. They touch on the tensions between harm and welfare as well as how different socio-biological tactics are enforced in the name of urban development. 

Date recorded: 31 March 2021

Krithika Srinivasan’s research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of political ecology, post-development politics, animal studies, and nature geographies. Her work draws on research in South Asia to rethink globally established concepts and practices about nature-society relations. Through empirical projects on street dogs and public health, biodiversity conservation, animal agriculture, and non-elite environmentalisms, her scholarship focuses on decolonizing and reconfiguring approaches to multispecies justice. Both her research and teaching are deeply rooted in long-term field engagement and praxis in India. Krithika has worked as a Lecturer in the departments of Geography at the University of Exeter and Durham University before moving to Edinburgh. You can find out more about Krithika here and connect with her on Twitter (@kritcrit). 

Claudia (Towne) Hirtenfelder is the founder and host of The Animal Turn. She is a PhD Candidate in Geography and Planning at Queen’s University and is currently undertaking her own research project looking at the geographical and historical relationships between animals (specifically cows) and cities. Contact Claudia via email (info@theanimalturnpodcast.com) or follow her on Twitter (@ClaudiaFTowne).

Featured:  The biopolitics of animal being and welfare: dog control and care in the UK and India; Conservation scapegoats and developmentality; and Reorienting rabies research and practice: Lessons from India; by Krithika Srinivasan.

Thank you to Animals in Philosophy, Politics, Law and Ethics (A.P.P.L.E) for sponsoring this podcast, Gordon Clarke (Instagram: @_con_sol_) for the bed music, and Jeremy John (Website) for the logo. 

The Animal Turn is part of the

A.P.P.L.E
Animals in Politics, Law, and Ethics researches how we live in interspecies societies and polities.

iROAR Network
iROAR brings together podcasts that aim is to make the world a better place for animals.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

This is another I roll podcast.

SPEAKER_01: 0:04

In the case of animals and you know non-human life, what you have is those who act on behalf of them, internalize these norms about, you know, say, for example, neutrin or even euthanasia being an animal welfare practice, and then go and act harmfully on this on the very creatures that they are trying to care for. And so that is what it's the internalization of norms, that is the co-mechanism through which biopower operates.

SPEAKER_02: 0:38

Welcome back to the Animal Turn, everyone. This is season three where we're focusing in on animals and the urban. And in today's episode, we're going to be speaking about the concept of biopolitics. Today's guest is going to help us understand how to use this concept in the context of the urban. And we've got to talk about the slide of the cut. It might be a wave of showing the highlights. Oh, it's a good one. So we're going to conversation. We had a lot to talk about and kind of my dog line. Hi, Kritika. Welcome to the Animal Turn Podcast.

SPEAKER_01: 3:12

Hi, I'm glad to be here. Thank you for inviting me.

SPEAKER_02: 3:17

Yes, it's I think it would have been impossible to have done a season on Animals in the Urban and not have you on as a guest. I think you are probably one of the most prolific writers about animals and the urban. So, what got you interested in animals being in urban spaces?

SPEAKER_01: 3:33

I've always lived in cities. Um, and right from when I was a newborn, I've lived around animals and with animals, so both animals inside the home and as a part of the family, and um animals in the in the broader um environment, in the broader landscape, and because I've always lived in cities, there have been urban animals, and I guess that is perhaps um one of the earliest starting points that I can think of. Um and given that they the urban is the space where I am the most likely to directly engage with animals and interact with animals, it has so happened that it has also been a key focus of my academic work, my scholarship.

SPEAKER_02: 4:21

But a lot of folks live in cities and have animals and see animals around them, but don't start to think about how they interact with animals. What sparked for you this kind of keen interest in the ways in which we interact with animals in the urban space? How did you start to actually see the animals?

SPEAKER_01: 4:38

So um I in one word, my grandfather um he he raised raised us. So we I was raised primarily by my grandparents, and um and uh he in particular was very uh in a way he was not a man of his times. Um and he he so I I'll I'll give you uh an anecdote, an incident that happened when I was a child, like you know, two incidents actually, which happened not too far away from each other. So one was an incident when my brother got, younger brother got really annoyed with me, and mind you, we were kids then, and he threw a stone which hit me on the nose and made me bleed. And then there was another incident where my cousin, um, again about the same age, would come to visit, got annoyed with one of the family dogs and threw a stone at the dog. Both my brother and my cousin got the exact same telling off, the exact same um uh censure for it. So um, so while I wouldn't say that our family was completely egalitarian when it came to you know human and non-human relationships, we in many ways, uh right from the beginning, there was this um understanding assumption that was taken for granted that uh we that that non-human animals were in no way um lesser to people or in in any ways ethically uh you know fundamentally different to people. So obviously those are not words that were used and we didn't discuss them in terms of ethics or politics or egalitarianism, but that was the underlying ethos, um, and which then makes you see things when the moment you leave the home and leave the confines of your family or the protection of your family, and you see that uh the rest of society does not quite engage uh with non-human life the same way, then that makes you notice things because it suddenly is different to what you were shown at home or what you were um how you were taught to be at home. And I guess that and that is why that is when you start noticing, that is when you start seeing, as you put it, at least that's how I would explain it.

SPEAKER_02: 6:52

So you kind of just had a sensitivity to animals from from the beginning that they deserve to be treated well. There's no reason to not wait, that was gonna be a double negative sentence. I was gonna say, there's no reason to not throw a stone at a dog, but you were taught that that's maybe something that deserves to be questioned, that it's not just okay to do it, uh, which is great. And have you always in your academic life, did you always have an interest in animals or did you start out on a different path?

SPEAKER_01: 7:20

So my academic work on animals started only with my PhD. Um, I did my undergrad and my master's education in India, um, and I did them in fields that were completely unconnected to animals and to photography. Uh, I did a undergrad education degree in psychology and a master's degree in social work. Now it was during my master's degree at the Tatar Institute of Social Sciences in Bombay where I started thinking about some of these issues in along more um abstract terms. In when I say abstract terms, I mean terms such as ethics and justice and politics. Those the kind those are the kinds of like issues and uh uh concepts that some of my work and a lot of the animal studies work engages with. And that's because I was doing a um a like I said, a master's degree in social work, and the um the entire it was a very it's a very it was it's now much bigger at that point when I was a student there, uh the Tata Institute of Social Sciences or TIS, as we call it, was a very small self-contained university. So the campus had about 200 students at any point in time, most of whom stayed on campus. Um, and most of the uh staff also uh stayed on campus, and it was it was not just a place where you went to study, you also you you lived there, and uh conversations that would start over you know, coffee in the morning would go on till well after midnight. Um, so it was a very different environment which shaped me quite significantly, and the the entire it was set up as a social science university and was set up as a university that was primarily concerned with social justice issues. Um, and so it the uh pretty much all the conversations there that happened, whether it was within the classroom or outside, were on such issues. Now it was also a campus that was very more than human, though that was not a term that I was aware of back then. Um it was it was in a part of the city, which at the time when um the campus was constructed was on the outskirts, but now it's no longer the outskirts, but it was located very closely to the Baba Atomic Research Center, and so because of that, it was a very green space because there was a lot of forest cover around the um around the atomic research center as protection from any um accidents. Um, so which meant that so even though it was a small campus, it was it was it was very green, though it's less so now with more construction that has happened over the years. Uh there are a whole range of animals on campus, right? From snakes to monkeys to all kinds of water birds, dogs, cats, um, and uh just so insects. Um I I cannot list all the animals as bats, large fruit bats. And even despite the fact that it was located right next to a major highway, so there's this like contrast that you could see see as well. And because there were so many animals uh on campus who came into quite close proximity to people, um, you all there was all there were there were a whole range of interactions, everything from you know warm and fuzzy positive interactions to a whole range of conflict situations as well. And um, what I found when I was there, because I studied there for two years during my master's, and I stayed on there for a year where I worked, and then I stayed on there for two more years when I started a PhD there, which I did not complete while there. What I discovered was that even though there were many people on campus, both staff and students, who were very interested in and committed to the Amazon campus, when it came to taking a public position on any conflict situation or any issue, or taking a political position, you'd find that they would hesitate to do so. They would hesitate to speak up if there was a problem. Uh, they would they prefer to kind of do it under the radar. And I found that to be really interesting as something that because these were also people who talked a lot about justice and politics and ethics, but when it came to this alone, there was you know, there was this overall uh reticence that one found even among very senior um staff members. Then in my was it my second year or my first year, I can't remember, but one of the um in one of the core courses that we had to take, the the course organizer had arranged for a representative from from Beauty Without Cruelty, which was um an animal um NGO based in Bombay in in Maharashtra to come and give us a talk. And I remember like right from the moment that person walked in till the end of the hour, the the reaction in the classroom was really, really interesting. So some people were siggering, other people very openly put their heads down and pretended to sleep, a few people walked out. So it was this um other people were making snarky remarks um about you know the kind of topic that he was talking about, which was he's speaking on animal rights. So that that also happened. So over the course of the um two years that I was there, I I even though we did not study anything explicitly related to animals, and even when it came to studying environmental issues, we we studied them mostly from a developmental perspective, right? So from the point of view of livelihoods or from the point of view of environmental degradation affecting people, so both that was the focus. But I I in in various ways I managed to do some of my you know coursework around animal-related themes. So for one course on histories and philosophies of social work, I did my um end-of-term essay on deep ecology, which was something I'd never heard of before, and that was the closest that I could come to at that time on something that was thinking about non-human life differently, and there were a couple of other uh such examples. Um, and so and this this continued over the other next two years as well, when I was there as a staff member and then as a PhD student, this kind of disjuncture between uh lived realities and academic work or political work, which by the time I came came around to starting to do my PhD, I realized that I would like to, you know, given that there was this what I saw as a huge absence in academic scholarship uh within the social sciences in India on animals, even though animals were there everywhere and quite closely caught up in human society, uh, that I would like to do that. But then even though in principle the supervisor I had um I had at that point in time have was in principle agreeable, then it actually came to the came to the you know the details of what I was going to do. There was again, there was there was there were difficulties, there were disagreements about to what extent I could actually take it, you know. I mean going too far.

SPEAKER_02: 14:19

What a journey. And I think I mean this is just your personal journey, but it brings forward so many of the tensions I think that animal studies uh in general as a as a discipline has possibly uh grappled with, kind of where where does it sit in the political sphere? Um, why does it often seem to be an outlier when it comes to justice movements in general, um, you know, where a variety of uh emancipatory um movements will support one another, even if they've got a different focus, whether it be racism or sexism or you know, decolonialism, oftentimes these groups will support one another, yet somehow uh animal liberation or animal studies will often be an outlier in these conversations. Um and I think it's changing possibly somewhat now, but still it doesn't seem to be quite integrated. Uh and I think what you're talking about as your own experience uh kind of resonates with some of that as well. And then even in in speaking kind of about just the presence of animals in your space and how ubiquitous they were. Uh, you know, I I I come from South Africa, but from Johannesburg, which was a really big city, and while we had lots of uh insects and a variety of different animals in in our space, I still uh kind of conceived of the space as being a non human space. Uh I don't know if I was really challenged in the way of thinking of my city as being a place in which there were a variety of different animals. And maybe they were there. I mean, they were there, I just wasn't seeing them. Uh but then it gets me thinking a bit about kind of what you were saying there about like developments and develop developmental ideas that uh even now in Canada where um people have this idea that cities are divorced from animals. There are no animals here, and I think it's this whole idea that these are modern cities and that if you've got kind of animals walking around, that means that it's not a modern city somehow. It's a developing city. So my experience just didn't work with that because I was from Johannesburg. I was like, what are you talking about? Anyway, I'm I'm rambling now. I just think your your personal experience there brought up so many just interesting tensions between development, developmental of cities as well as animal studies sitting within broader, um, broader justice frameworks, uh, which is fascinating. What did you end up uh focusing on for your your PhD? So you were seeing all of these different um tensions around you. What what did you end up, what did you end up focusing on?

SPEAKER_01: 16:52

So I like I said, I I I didn't end up after two years there, I I left that program and I started looking for a PhD abroad, and I ended up at King's College in London, um, uh working with David DeMerit, who I couldn't have asked for a more supportive supervisor, even though he doesn't do animal studies himself. Um, he he was very open-minded and um and so I ended up focusing on um I had two case studies uh in my PhD, one was on street dogs, so both of them were issues of controversy, and I guess now that I'm thinking about it in hindsight, it's perhaps my my, you know, the kind of kinds of experiences that I was telling you about, personal experiences that shaped my choice of case studies where I went and I started looking for controversies, and there were controversy controversies around street dogs, which I've lived with all my life, um, in a sense, not just street dogs, but controversies about them around them. Um and uh the second case study was controversies around a marine turtle sanctuary and all of Ridley Turtle Conservation and Orista. And I was keen on having uh case studies from these two different domains because by that time the little bit of reading and thinking that I had started to do on these issues, what I was able what I very quickly saw was that there was this dichotomy that was very deeply entrenched in both public discourse and in um scholarship on conservation on the one hand and animal protection on the other hand, even though at the most basic level they're both you know spheres of action and you know and discourse that engage with non-human um life with non-human animals, if you want to focus on animals. Um, so uh I very quite deliberately chose case studies that came from these two different domains of um more than human action to see what would happen if if I studied together things that are normally kept apart. So that's what, and which is where the um my my PhD work, the final analysis ended up being um um an examination of the biopolitical logics that you see in spaces of care, whether they be conservation or animal protection. And by biopolitical, I I deploy the term in a very specific sense where I'm talking about how harm and care are intertwined, are entangled in spaces of care. So I know biopolitics is now used very loosely and in 1500 different ways, but I was using it in a very Flukolian sense to talk about something very specific about this entanglement of harm and care.

SPEAKER_02: 19:32

I'm happy you've brought us there because that's uh of course the focus of today's uh episode is uh we're gonna look at kind of the idea of urban biopolitics. But maybe before we bring the urban into to clear focus as well as how animals are related to that, maybe we can just talk a little bit about biopolitics and and the ways you use it. Um because yeah, I think it's it is it's a huge concept, and uh, I think sometimes things maybe get lost in terms of two people speaking about the same concept but with very different ideas as to what it means. So uh let's start there. Uh what is uh biopolitics? Maybe you can just give us a little bit of an uh a grappling, and I know this is an hour podcast, like wrap up one of the most complex concepts, but just as a as a as a way of helping listeners understand what are we talking about when when you hear the concept biopolitics, what are we what are we what are we talking about here?

SPEAKER_01: 20:26

So I will I will say a little bit about how I use it in my work, which draws on how um the social theorist Foucault uh talked about it, and which is about different the different kinds of uh power that you see in society or the different ways in which power operates. So normally when we say power, we're used to thinking of power as something that is exerted by through the use of brute force, you know, like as vested in in the monarch or in the sovereign, where you know, if you don't do this, I'm gonna chop your head off. You know, you know, that that is how we normally uh think of power. But what Foucault's work on biopower does is to show that that may not be the only way in which power is exercised, um uh, but rather it can be exercised through logics uh of care, uh, where the um the justifications and narratives that are used to exercise power are not based on force or violence, but rather on uh ideas of improvement. Right? So if I want to as the as the sovereign, if I want to build a really strong army, I could either you know do through the exercise of sovereign power where I say, unless you know, through forcible conscription, where I say unless you become a part of me, part of my army, I will throw you in jail or I'll chop your head off. Or I could say, um, hey, listen, all of you, um, can you please it's good for you to be participating in these boot camps every day because um you will be fit and strong and you will um you will um it be good for your own health, and you know, hey, by the way, it also means that I have an army ready to go at my disposal when I need it and I want to expand my territories. Now it so happens now, and this is integral to biopower that all the people that I'm drawing into into my fold using that kind of a logic, not all of them might be suited to participating in boot camps every day and jumping up and down 1500 times. Some of them might might might just collapse and die, but then uh but they might just collapse and die.

SPEAKER_02: 22:30

I think I'd be a good candidate to do that.

SPEAKER_01: 22:32

You can still do it, and that is where uh and I don't have to force you to do it, you just do it on your own. And the other example that I I used to think about this concept is is um you know the practice of wearing high heels, um, which very often it's women who do it, um, and it's something that is inherently physiologically harmful, but then there are these narratives out at play where which which suggests that by wearing high heels, not only do you look more attractive, but you also look more powerful, you also feel more confident, and therefore you then end up engaging in a in a practice, right, where you after having internalized these norms about how something that might be harmful to you is or actually also good for you, you start to uh exercise this power on yourself. Uh, you don't need anyone out there to force you to wear heels, you do it by yourself, even though it is harmful.

SPEAKER_02: 23:29

So we've so biopolitics, we've got so we've got a discussion about power happening here, where on the one hand, power could be exercised through making you do something. You will do this by by force. Uh, I will dominate you and make you do this, um, possibly even through threats of violence. Whereas on the other hand, and these are not necessarily um opposed to one another, you can have kind of both sets of power operating at the same time, um, you've got you've got kind of power relationships that compel you to abide by what's happening. Uh, and sometimes it's not really clear that there's a top-down force, right? It's not like there's some one big person, a king or someone saying you must do this, but you find that you conform to societal norms, whether it's wearing high heels or putting uh, you know, putting on a suit when you go into a meeting, um, shaking a hand. You find that there are all of these everyday things you do, and you're not too sure why you do them, but uh it just kind of seems to be part of a convention, just the it is the way it is, I feel. Um so I guess uh biopolitics is kind of you're starting to question or look at kind of these everyday things that we feel we must do where no one's actually really telling us to do it. So why, why, why are why are we even doing this?

SPEAKER_01: 24:52

And not just conventions, but practices that are actually harmful to you, but you're convinced are good for you because of these conventions. So we're not just talking about any practice, right? We're talking about practices where where you're doing yourself harm.

SPEAKER_02: 25:06

But is it is it only practices where you're doing yourself harm, or is it could it also be positive practices? Or or is it our understanding of those practices? So it's not really whether it causes us harm or not, but whether or not we understand it as being good for us.

SPEAKER_01: 25:22

The way I have used it, and at least how I understand focus work on biopower, is that these are practices that are harmful, but then you they also have this veneer of something that's an improving practice, of improvement. So it's it's this meshing of harm and care that is what is integral to biopolitical power or biopower.

SPEAKER_02: 25:47

And how does the bio come into this? So so I get that this is political and how power is moving, um, you know, between relationships and kind of yeah, like you said here, it's possibly harmful for you, but you understand it as being good for you. Um, but where does the bio come into all of this? Uh, why why bio in biopower?

SPEAKER_01: 26:08

I suppose because we are primarily talking about the the government of life. We are not really talking about moving rocks and mountains, though there is an argument to be made that a lot of what we do to ecologies and landscapes also be understood in relation to biopower. But some of the original formulations and thinking on this was about human populations and human societies.

SPEAKER_02: 26:31

So, how we how we can keep our populations growing, I think reproduction is probably a really uh good place here. Like, why why do we take birth control and use condoms and do these things? Um, it's the management of life and the extent to which we would like our populations to grow, um, and who in those populations we would like to grow. So I think we're we're speaking at really big levels here, but that does kind of give a sense of what biopolitics is, um, kind of power relationships and uh and how they navigate, uh how they help to determine who gets to live and who gets to die. Okay, so how then does this relate to the urban? Why when we're talking about biopolitics and the urban, um could you maybe give us an example that would make this more uh accessible if we're talking about biopolitics and the urban?

SPEAKER_01: 27:24

So biopolitics is not necessarily an urban concept, right? You've you will it's something that those ideas are uh I think idea they can be used to understand, examine, analyze power relations everywhere. But some of my work has looked at the government of life in urban regions, um, and that is so the work that has used the idea of biopower the most has been in the context of my work with street dogs and cities and the various practices of both caring for and controlling them. So some of my earliest work uh with uh on dogs and not just street dogs, but I was looking at dog control and care across the UK and India, uh, contrasting the two uh spaces or societies. Um, so the UK that the the paper kind of and I'm I'm I'm giving you this backstory to kind of explain how uh harm and care can come together. So this paper uh had its roots in in one of in the first animal studies workshop that I attended, and one of the first talks in that uh workshop was given by a former uh head of the RSPCA, which is the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in um in the uh in the UK, so it's one of the biggest flagship organizations, and he started off by talking about how the UK needs to teach the BRICS countries, so Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, on how to do animal welfare because the UK was the world leader in animal welfare. And I was sitting there, the audience and kind of see thing because I was remembering when I lived in India, I used to do some work in animal um sanctuaries and shelters, and especially around street dogs. And I would remember every time a donor from abroad came to visit, especially a major donor, we would go around hiding all those animals that we thought that they would want euthanized because uh because we they had you know different ideas of what was a good life. Uh, and we were and these were animals that we knew with some care would stand a good chance at a happy, fulfilling life, but to some of us donors, they just wouldn't look you know, look uh safe. It didn't work with their idea of where dogs belong in a city, not just where dogs belong, but like how dog what a good dog life is like.

unknown: 29:51

Right?

SPEAKER_01: 29:52

So it's not just about belonging, it's also about what what is a good dog life. So that and so I've seen and that's where that that's what that whole paper does is. To is to ask because you have across the world this fairly entrenched concept, even though, on the one hand, countries, societies across the world have free-living dogs, on the other hand, you have this the increasing with pervasiveness of the idea that dogs have good lives only if they are in human homes, if they are in human property of some kind or the other, if they are under some kind of human care, which is something that that paper you know unpacks and you know and showing that, like if you're a dog in the UK, you have very few possibilities for life because if you're not under some kind of human ownership, you have to be dead. Whereas in many other uh societies, including India, there are multiple possibilities of life for a dog. Now, as a street dog, you obviously you you know you have to go look for your food, you might get run over by cars, you might get um you might fall sick and not have any medical care available for you, you uh people might throw stones at you occasionally, you might get rounded up and killed. But on the other hand, you also enjoy a great deal of freedoms that pet dogs don't have. So, for one example, you can pee and poop whenever you want, and you're not you know dependent on somebody coming to let you out. And even if the most conscientious uh person you know, person I'm I'm sure is not going to be taking their dog out every half an hour. Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 31:22

Um, so that's yeah, just the ability to decide where you want to go on a walk and when you want to go on a walk. Um yeah, it's a very different way to be, I guess. Um who gets to decide your mobility, yourself or someone else. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 31:38

And so then I started to dig around and think a little more carefully about why is it that these very contrasting ideas of what constitutes a good dog life came up. And what the paper argues is that uh ideas of a good dog life can also be quite closely interconnected with uh various kinds of human interests in and of themselves. So, so for instance, in in the UK, um the fact that are no street dogs now, no free-living dogs right now is directly linked to concerns around uh babies in the late 1800s when all free-living dogs were rounded up and killed. And because the UK is an island, they were able to do that pretty successfully, so it doesn't have porous borders. Um, and that's why you don't have free-living dogs. Now, even now, any dog that doesn't have an owner is is is is subject to potential uh uh death, even though it's called euthanasia to what extent it meets the criteria for euthanasia is is up for uh is debate. Um so, but then somehow over time what has happened is that it's moved from being a practice of animal controlled euthanasia in the context of places like the UK and many other regions, to an animal welfare practice. So, you know, oh this is a stray dog. And if you know this this stray dog, if uh if you know he or she, if you're not able to find him or her a home, there is no other choice but for him or her to be euthanized, right? And it becomes animal welfare.

SPEAKER_02: 33:09

Yeah, so if they can't, so in essence, you either are in a home uh which is viewed as being good for you, you're a dog and you're in a home and you'll be well cared for, but if you're not in a human home, then um then you can't live a good life, so the only option is to kill you.

SPEAKER_01: 33:26

Exactly, yeah. And that's that is one example. Then the the other very commonly um um promoted animal welfare practice is that of neutering. And I say this as somebody who was very was and is quite extensively involved in engaging such practices, so it comes from a space of self-reflection, so not me sitting you know on an armchair somewhere and criticizing what animal protection people do. Um and neutering is as you and if you have a dog, you must know, it's seen as the gold standard in animal welfare for all companion animals, dogs, cats, uh, whatever it might be. But then if you act, if you actually think a little more carefully about it, neutering is at the end of the day, it is quite profoundly biological, biologically harmful, physiologically harmful to the individual animal because it's castration in males and variable hystrictomies in females. It are quite serious surgeries with long-term permanent impacts. But if you at that at that point in time, I started looking for research in in veterinary science on some of the negative impacts of uterine, and I could hardly find anything. It looks like research studies were not asking that question. All these studies that I could find were only about the positive impacts of uterine, which included things like they won't get phylometra because they won't have a uterus, uh, or they might be protected from some kinds of cancers.

SPEAKER_02: 34:52

Um and obviously it makes And with males, it's often the idea of regression, uh reduced aggression. Somehow like this absolutely changes the type of personality the dog might be expected to have. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 35:06

So there you see, right? So it's a docility, if it's a female, um, she won't come into heat, at which end of the day, it's you know, it's if you're if you have a dog at in a human home or in some sort of human space, she will be bleeding everywhere. Many of them do, not all of them, many of them do bleed, and which is obviously doesn't fit within certain standards of our you know, health and hygiene and cleanliness. So you find that what again, what is actually a practice of animal control becomes a practice of animal welfare. And so, and because of these logics of care that are used, and neutering over time has has people neuter these days in the name of dog or animal welfare itself as opposed to animal control, and because of these sort of sort of internalization of norms, and I suppose your dog is neuter as well.

SPEAKER_02: 36:00

Yeah, I mean, so he he came from um the Humane Society. We we adopted him just over a year ago now. And if you adopt a dog, there is no option here. Um there is no there is no determining whether you would like your dog to have that as an experience in their life. Uh, if you would like to uh if if you think you've got a different view on aggression or whatever it is, um if you want to adopt because you don't want to abide by breeding practices or engage in that market, uh, or whatever your reasoning is behind it, you don't have that as a as an option. Um you yeah, you you you your dog or will just come to you having undergone this procedure. And I actually had a conversation with one of my housemates about this just the other day because you know, on the one hand, yes, I understand that there are kind of uh population conflicts, I guess, that happen, or ideas about how human and dog populations could or can interact. And kind of at I think at the seat of this, at least in our city, is the idea that we have to do something for dogs. We can't just leave dogs be. If there are dogs on the street, something has to happen. So, you know, neutering them is a way of kind of keep those numbers down, the population, as you were speaking, trying to keep dog populations down. But then even just the the invasiveness of the type of procedure, uh, and I don't know anything about this, but I know that at least with humans, there are options that are far less invasive than having a hysterectomy or or having having your your balls removed in effect. Like you can have far less invasive operations where you might also decide later on that actually my doggo maybe maybe there is room for them having a companion or having a family of their own. Um, and it just seems as though that's uh not even an option. Kind of it it is the most invasive, most categorical procedure is seen as the solution, which yeah, once once you start to look at it, it it is a bit disconcerting, it is a bit uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_01: 38:08

And I think that's type two disility and changing dog personalities to make them more adapted to um life within human society. So in India as well, why we have uh a central law which forbids the killing of free-living dogs, uh, it also says that where um municipal authorities want to control uh dog populations, they have to neuter, and it's it's an it's a very widespread animal welfare practice, something that like even I engage in, right? And that's prime because you know uh puppy when you especially when you give dogs in adoption and they end up having puppies, then the chance of finding those puppies good homes are you know it's uh next to impossible, and once they're born in a human home, it's not very easy for them to be a street dog again. So, for all those reasons, it's something that I would insist on as well. And I, you know, when when one is handing over an animal to an adopter. Um, but what what I was trying to think about there is that how is even in purely thinking in terms of ammo welfare, I can, you know, how did how is it the new turn went from something which was a strategic decision, a less than perfect decision or practice, right? There, where you're trying to make make the best of an imperfect situation or of the existing status quo. From there, from that, how did it move to becoming a gold standard in animal welfare to the extent that it now it then spread from just dogs to cats as well? Um, I don't know about Canada, but in the UK, you now have programs run by animal charities where they go and go to what they call feral cat colonies and catch them and neuter them and try and rehome the kittens and uh ensure that the adults are neutered and put back. And I'm like, even though cats have traditionally not been involved in the kind of conflict situations with human society that dogs have been. So, but you find that there's this like movement of ideas across.

SPEAKER_02: 40:06

So, okay, so bringing it back to biopolitics and some of what you were talking about with regards to like these changing narratives. Uh, so we kind of had a discourse, I guess, a way of talking about dogs and saying, okay, there's this population, we need to control them, um, they're dangerous because of rabies or or there's going to be conflicts or whatever it is. And that idea, the actual idea of why it is we're doing what we're doing, has undergone a fundamental change where it's not about saying we need to control them as much as it is saying, hey, this is this is good for the doggers, this will make them better doggers, they will be part of our societies, they will be able to function better, they will be able to fit within what we think are, I guess, the norms of our of our the way in which our society should operate. They will they will abide better and this will be good for them. Um so is that kind of the overarching arch of how biopolitics is implicating street street dogs, um, not just street dogs, dogs in general.

SPEAKER_01: 41:07

So that part of it where uh the shift in narrative is where the whole question of norms comes in and biopower, biopolitics, um, biopower operates through the internalization of norms. Like to go back to the example of high heels, I internalize these norms about uh how high heels make me look better, make me look more confident, make me feel more powerful. You know, so when I go for a job interview, I wear heels, even if I may not do so regularly, even though it's not good for me. In the case of animals and you know, non-human life, what you have is those who act on behalf of them, internalize these norms about, you know, say, for example, neutering or even euthanasia being animal an animal welfare practice, and then go and act harmfully on the very creatures that they are trying to care for. Um, and so that is what it's the internalization of norms, that is the co-mechanism through which biopower operates, uh, as opposed to sovereign power, which is drop down.

SPEAKER_02: 42:04

But when we speak here about the internalization of norms, um, so a lot of the previous season we spoke about animals and experience, and we were trying to kind of center, I think, animals as subjects, animals as beings that experience the world and have a distinct way of understanding their environments. Are animals also internalizing these norms? Or is this just kind of a human, is biopolitics just humans navigating amongst humans who are internalizing different ways that they think animals should be in cities? Or are animals themselves also internalizing these?

SPEAKER_01: 42:39

So in my work, I've only focused on human internalization of norms because I don't think I have any way of finding out to what extent a dog or a cat has internalized human norms about what a good dog or cat life is. Um in obviously animals of all kinds adapt to human society. They learn very quickly what we expect of them, and sometimes they do try to live in ways that please us and act in ways that seem suitable to us. But whether that's internalization of norms or if it's them being strategic, I have no idea. So I wouldn't hesitate to comment on that.

SPEAKER_02: 43:18

Fair enough. But I do enjoy thinking through it just because yeah, it is an interesting question. How can we start to look at and appreciate animals, observe animals, and try to get a sense of the extent to which they do abide by norms, where they do make decisions. I'm sure you've seen now, um, or I maybe I shouldn't be presumptuous, the the Elizabeth Lowe film that just came out uh stray with following the street dogs in Istanbul. Um and I just thought it was really interesting to see how it seemed as though they had internalized a variety of norms about the urban space. They looked when she just follows the dogs around the city, one doggo in particular. And for me, there were there were fascinating moments where the dog uh would cross a street and make it, you know, would look to see if there were cars. Still pooped in the the parks, which a lot of people found offensive, so not abiding by those norms, but there were other urban norms, I think, where the dog was starting to pay attention. There are cars and they could hurt me. I'm gonna make sure I look before I cross. Um and yeah, there's a feminist rally happening, and the dog decides to engage in some sex during the feminist rally, which is just which maybe goes against the norm of what that event was supposed to be about, uh, or maybe it doesn't. Uh, I guess it depends what they were fighting for. Um, but yeah, it's just it's it's interesting to think through the possibility of how we might be able to watch what dogs are doing in the space and consider how they are internalizing the way in which the society operates.

SPEAKER_01: 45:05

I I would hesitate to that and there, the two examples that you provided itself suggest to me that it's not the same kind of internalization of norms that at least I I talk about when I'm talking about you know ideas of a good dog life or you know, wearing high heels. Because at the end of the cars are a very material threat to dogs, and it only makes sense that they learn how to avoid them. Whereas pooping in the park is at the end of the day a very human norm that a dog should not poop there, right? Whereas for a dog that's very good pooping space because he or she probably has space to you know bury it and do whatever is right from a dog point of view, ecologically.

SPEAKER_02: 45:46

Yeah. Um, so but then I guess the dog has internalized a dog norm, right? Which might be in conflict with the human norm, but I maybe then I'm veering too far from what biopolitics is or could be about. Um it's interesting to just think through. It's it's a challenging question for sure. What I really want to ask you about is how you use the word street dogs. So you you use it quite differently. You think think that there's a difference between street dogs, stray dogs, like you almost have a topology of different ways in which dogs could be categorized. Could you possibly tell us a little bit about that before we start wrapping up?

SPEAKER_01: 46:26

Um, so stray is a very culturally specific term, and it it is a it's a way of classifying any animal in a way to denote it as some an animal that is out of place, that doesn't belong somewhere. So a you know, so you could have the same dog, and one system of classification could call it a stray dog, another system of classification could call it uh a street dog, and free living dog is is a term that I started to use because when you say street dog, you kind of think of dogs as only being in places where there are streets, which and that tends to be you know urban areas, whereas free living dogs are found everywhere, uh even in places where there are no streets, so to speak. The street dog is a term that's used in Indian law and very commonly used in India. But I expanded that to talk about you know what is it that is different about these dogs to the way in which we normally think about dogs, and it's sad that they're living outside of human ownership, so they're free-living, much like many other animals are. Um, so they're actually they so they actually could all refer to the same dog, it all depends on the human viewer, the human classifier. So, what to me is a free-living dog could be a stray dog to you, and in Indian law could be a street dog.

SPEAKER_02: 47:47

So it's it's not the dog in and of himself or herself, but rather how we view the dog and their their um place, their belonging, I guess, to someone. Fascinating. Um, great, thank you so much. Uh, we're gonna start wrapping up a bit now. Uh and at the end of every show, I give guests an opportunity to read a quote that kind of tries to sum up some of what we've been talking about or something related to the season's theme. Uh, do you do you have a quote ready?

SPEAKER_01: 48:19

Yes, and it's there are a couple of lines from the uh shorter essay that I I I sent to you uh where it was a co-authored essay, but it it it it kind of compresses some of these uh ideas about the about development and the relationship between biopolitics and development, um, and you know the the place of conservation um in today's world that I discuss in both the academic paper that I sent you and the Foundation work. Um so I will I will read out the quote and then perhaps you could ask me. I don't know how how you normally take it from there, but I will just read out the two lines that I've chosen.

SPEAKER_02: 49:01

Yep, let's see, let's see how it goes. I look forward to hearing it.

SPEAKER_01: 49:04

So um it is simpler to arrest poachers and exterminate invasive alien species or free-living dogs than to effectively contest the developmental machine. However, the net outcome of that scapegoating is that conservationist detention is distracted from root causes of biodiversity loss and large-scale human-induced harm to non-human nature. So those are the two lines that I picked for this.

SPEAKER_02: 49:28

We haven't even touched on development really. It was something that came up when you were speaking a little bit uh about your personal experience. And here, I think, again, developments and kind of the idea of biodiversity are used often to manage animals' lives. What do you think? Uh, how do you think development is used to manage animals' lives? And and does it operate, does it operate differently in different cities? Do you think that you know the idea of development is used in all cities to manage animals' lives, or is this just something that's uh uh found in specific cities?

SPEAKER_01: 49:58

So but the the earlier conversations that we were having about a good dog life and about how you know nutrition and euthanasia become animal welfare, how do how do they go from animal control to animal welfare? Even though we didn't talk about it in terms of development, ultimately it's this broader vision of a certain kind of good human life that is driving these practices of animal control as well as these ideas of animal welfare, right? So we think that our cities should not have stray dogs because we don't want to be exposed to the risks and nuisances that they can pose because of a certain vision of development that we have. And here I'm using development in its broadest, most basic sense. I'm not talking about one particular development project, I'm not talking about one style of development, whether you know it's capitalist or socialist, but overall this and you know, broader project of shoring up human life so as to kind of reach a certain kind of vision of a good human life, which is something that involves insulation from the risks posed by living as a part of nature. If you look at pretty much everything that is done in the neighborhood development, it is to protect humankind from being animal, from being a part of nature, right? The houses that we live in, the clothes we wear, the food systems that we are a part of, the medical systems that healthcare systems we are part of, even the current war against SARS-CoV-2, it's all about insulation.

SPEAKER_02: 51:28

So we've got we've got like this ideal type of what it means to be a good human, and a lot of what it means to be a good human has uh us divorced from all sorts of other species, unless that species is under our control. Um so a good human might have a dog, but it'll be a dog on a leech in a very controlled, ordered, clean environment. Um we've uh idea of what a good human is is quite sterile, actually. It's quite divorced from any sort of messiness or um uh and I think most of us would never achieve that ideal. Most of us come into contact with all sorts of messiness every day. Um, but I suppose that doesn't stop us trying to trying to create policies. We we view it as I guess a normative ideal that we're trying to move towards. If if how can we get cleaner?

SPEAKER_01: 52:17

How can we get more more organized, more um, and oftentimes I think we end up looking at biological processes or or at other animals that we've how how can we yeah, it's it's a really weird thing when you look at it because life is messy, yeah, and not a good human, because a good human can mean it, you know, whether you're a good person or a bad person, but a good human life, right? So and that includes even like all of us, even those of us who try to think particularly about it. We have we are quite embedded in what is a comfortable life or a good life, in those ideas that we um we in ways that we are perhaps not fully aware of, we do, you know, we participate in the healthcare system, for example, we uh we benefit from it. Now, the thing about the pursuit of development is that it involves harm, right? The pursuit of human well-being of this kind involves harm to others, whether they be non-human others or human others. Human others, there's a vast literature on displacement caused by development of all kinds, right? Whether it be infrastructure projects or economic development, or in the case of COVID, the lockdowns in different parts of the world they cause immense libel displacement and in places like India, even death, not because of COVID, but because of the measures that were put into place for COVID. Um, and in obviously and the case, the destruction to non-human life caused by development. I don't have to explain to you. I mean, we all know it's come back to fight us in the backside, so to speak. Um so um right, what was I going to say? Ah, so that so development in and of itself is fundamentally biopolitical because you have these extremely harmful uh practices, which you know, practices that might be harmful to others currently, but in the long run are harmful to us, but which are which are uh justified and actively like they they have a very active force in today's world because of these narratives of progress and improvement and well-being. So it's fundamentally a biopolitical pursuit.

SPEAKER_02: 54:20

Uh yeah, I and and I see now kind of why earlier on you said harm is really central to uh a biopolitical understanding. But I think one's um my inclination right now when you speak about harm is how do I remove the harm, right? Is there any is there any getting away from harm? Or is is harm just uh in in trying to understand biopolitics and trying to understand development? Is it not so much a matter of saying, okay, how do we reduce harm, or is it a matter of just acknowledging that there is harm? How does uh or is there no call to action here? Uh yeah, like because when as soon as you mention harm, people think negative and then they want to fix that negative. Is that uh is that what the goal is here?

SPEAKER_01: 55:05

So I I definitely use harm in a negative sense in my work, right? And here I'm talking about harm done to others, but and harm done to others in an effort to protect ourselves from harm. So I think there are different ways of acting. So there's this extremely inequitable distribution of uh goods and bads of not of harms and benefits in the way in which development is practiced and it in multiple areas, right? So healthcare, for example, harms non-human others and also lesser what we people from socio-economically marginalized communities, in the service of protecting more privileged communities, human communities from harms caused by disease, right?

SPEAKER_02: 55:47

So there's so it's also looking at so it's not so much that we can get away from harm, but that uh harm has been concentrated on specific populations, uh, whereas other populations have kind of managed to, in pursuits of them having a better life, um, they've managed to sidestep a lot of these harms. Um, so yeah, like you said, an unequal distribution of harms and benefits, it's okay.

SPEAKER_01: 56:11

And what I'm talking about in that quote is the conflict between biodiversity conservation and wildlife conservation that and um many kinds of animals that you often see, whether they be invasive alien species or animals like freelanced and cats, you know, birds and cats, for example, dogs and wildlife and uh invasive alien species and you know other what are called native organisms, they're all very, very, very commonly seen conservation conflicts where conservation, which is a space of care, goes about actively harming different non-human organisms because they see them as threats to uh other more valued ecologies than animals. And so, in that in that essay and also the paper that I shared with you, um some of what I'm trying to think through is to what extent it is that these animals are the ones that are actually threatening valued biodiversity, or is it that they're just easier scapegoats because what is actually changing landscapes and threatening uh all kinds of non-human organisms is this developmental machine and at all levels, at all kinds. But then it's very difficult to challenge the developmental machine because we are also quite deeply embedded in it, and so therefore, other organisms become easier targets, whether they be gray squirrels or street dogs, or I don't know what.

SPEAKER_02: 57:42

I think that kind of the idea of development being this monolithic singular progression is is altering the lives of humans and animals in in cities in quite profound ways, and we only really get a glimpse of it when we start to, I think, compare cities, as what you've done with some of your work across the UK and India, but also when we start to compare across time and how cities have changed.

SPEAKER_01: 58:07

It also pits uh some non-human organisms against others or some human communities against others, to you know, the conservation example, right? You you protect grace uh red squirrels, but then you exterminate grace squirrels, you protect uh particular kind of you know um, I don't know, but yeah, uh you know, invasive species is another example, you know, um, where you eradicate some um organic plants in order to protect other plants, even though the actual threat is is is habitat loss caused by development or landscape change caused by different kinds of human activities. And so, what some of this work tries to kind of do is to point out that by focusing on these easy scapegoats, whether it be poachers or street dogs or invasive species, uh, first of all, you're never going to be able to really actually address the problem because even if you exterminate an invasive, uh what you think of as an invasive species, as long as the broader landscape doesn't change, the animal that you actually want to protect is not going to come back because the landscape has changed and therefore it's no longer hospitable to that organism. And that's the reason why the invasive species has been able to take hold there anyway. They adaptative creatures, the ones that have been able to adapt, whereas the ones that you want to protect as native have not managed and managed to survive these human-induced changes. So I and so as long as conservationist attention keeps remains focused on these scapegoats, the broader changes that one might want to see in terms of the flourishing of non human life is probably likely never to happen because the root causes of destruction are not being um addressed.

SPEAKER_02: 59:57

You know, I've spoken to uh Paula Carl. And she was kind of raising also it's interesting that you spoke about this tension between different species as well, because there's a lot of talk now about reanimating cities and making cities more, you know, more animal to some extent. But those the animals that are included in those narratives have to kind of fit within the idea of uh what humans want from animals and what what could conceivably sit within our idea of development. And there's very little conversation happening about, like you said, invasive species and and animals where uh where things are not as seamless. What about the the animals with whom we already have in our cities and we're we're actively trying to to destroy because they don't fit again with this idea of development, with this idea of a modern city. Uh and and I think yeah, that's a that's a big project. How do we start to just unpack do you have any ideas how we start to unpack and grapple with uh challenging these development these development uh discourses?

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:04

Um we're just like you know that so far if you were thinking along conservationist lines, for example, I I think some of what I've been arguing is that we need to learn to instead of expecting rural communities elsewhere to live in golds or bears or elephants, we need to first, those of us who are in cities, we need to first learn to learn the drafts of coaches and topics and basically, right? And that at the end of the day the risks for coaches and rafts and stores are probably far less than both and elephants might go through communities elsewhere. But you would find that the very same people who actively you know promote or um support elephant conservation or full-free introduction or you know, title conservation would are also very likely to be not open to sharing their own spaces, living spaces, everyday living spaces with less ski creatures, less noxious creatures with the conservative. So and I think that that is where the change needs to come, where and that is a very kind of practical way of uh rethinking development and reapproaching development is to is it's by learning to live with what you might consider as eonoxious and sort of expecting others to do it.

SPEAKER_02: 1:02:20

Yeah, it's um yeah I was gonna use a bad uh I always get my metaphors mixed up. I was gonna use uh clean up your own house, but clean doesn't quite seem to be what we need right now. I have maybe be okay with the messy parts of your own house and start to start to consider that uh sometimes other organisms and other animals and other beings are part of our uh landscape. Um and yeah, I guess how do we start to build policy and how do we start to think about uh uh our cities not in this kind of sterile way? Um and like you said, to not project where the change needs to happen onto others uh constantly. Um great. Well, thank you, thank you again uh so so much for for this conversation. And I will share uh the the papers you shared with me. We've spoken, I think, about three three of your different papers. I will include them in the show notes uh so that folks who are interested in reading more about your work. Uh they're great. I I read all I read all three of them yesterday and I really loved the the cartoon. Uh I actually shared it on Twitter. There's just this great cartoon you have of the topology of dogs showing like different ways in which um animals are um topol is the word typologized, I don't know, um categorized. There we go. And uh and yeah, I just the doggo pointing up to you know wanting to be extinct. We we fall into this category that they want to make extinct, which uh it's it's it's a great quote. Um so thank you again so much. If you could possibly tell us a bit about what you're working on, uh any you said you're you're currently doing research right now, right?

SPEAKER_01: 1:04:00

Yes, I'm here for a project on uh farmed animals in India. Um and uh India has the world's largest farmed animal sector, and but hardly any kind of conversation around the uh implications for ecologies and the lives of the animals themselves, except for some animal protection work. So um I'm here trying to understand what is it that's really happening on the ground, uh, in what way are these conversations happening or not happening? If they're not happening, why not? So that's what I'm doing. Um I have a larger candidate of three dogs and maybe some public health starting uh in September, where um uh we're trying to use the um we call it a decolonial approach to the um public health and street dogs, where instead of uh approaching uh health concerns associated with dogs from a Eurocentric perspective where street dogs and street dogs are seen as fine infections of the disease, we want to withdraw some of our previous work, like uh where we look at the whole multidimensional relationships that humanity dogs have with people, where they contribute in not just in negative ways to human health, and they don't pose just health risks, but they also contribute in positive ways to human life and human health in order to really understand what is the relationship between public health and and and human dogs. So that's the next project that's coming up, and I'm I'm also doing some work on open nature but beyond speed of You're so busy, so busy.

SPEAKER_02: 1:05:42

Um well I'm really excited to to see and read some of what's coming up and I I might reach out to you again to have you on in a future a future season where perhaps we look at conservation or at health uh because it's been great talking to you today. Uh if people want to reach out to you and get in touch, uh where might they find you?

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:00

So my university webpage um has I can send you the link, has a lot of information. I tweet at at K-R-I-T-C-R-I-T. Um, and email is perhaps the best way of reaching me k.s.ac.uk. So those are the same.

SPEAKER_02: 1:06:20

Awesome, wonderful. I'll make sure that it's included in the show notes too. Well, thank you so much for joining me today, and uh apologies again for being slightly distracted. Um, but it's been wonderful talking to you, and I hope that the heat doesn't get you down too much. I hope it's cooling off a little bit now. Does the temperature go down a bit in the evenings or does it kind of just stay up the whole day?

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:41

I'm sweating less already on that the sun is setting. Yeah. And don't apologize for being distracted because we were just talking about how life should be messy, right?

SPEAKER_02: 1:06:51

So exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:53

Because this is life with other animals, and sometimes things don't go as neatly uh as uh as including the the ambient sounds from here, but it shouldn't play outside of what you're let that be in if you get. Fantastic. Well, thank you. Thank you. It was very easy talking to you, so thanks.

SPEAKER_02: 1:07:20

Welcome to the Animal Turn Highlight. In this one, I decided to focus on a dog who's already come up several times in season three and is bound to come up many more times before the season is done, and that is, of course, the urban dog. So uh I as you know, these uh highlights are relatively new, and I'm still figuring out how best to carry them out. So if you've got any ideas, please feel free to send me a message. But for now, I really enjoyed what I did last week in reading an excerpt from a book, and I thought I would do the same thing today. I wanted to highlight a book for you that's called On Looking by Alexander Horowitz, and she walks around with experts who help her to see the block that she lives on with new eyes. And she has a chapter in the book where she decides that one of the experts she needs to go on a walk with is, of course, her dog Finnegan, because he has an incredible sense of smell and will help her to not only see her block differently, but understand how her block smells. And she writes, biologically, the human nose works in the same way as the dogs. Odors are swept into the far reaches of the nose and land in receptors, a few million of them. But that is hundreds of millions fewer than the dog bears. The difference in number of cells translates into a difference of kind. Dogs detect odors at one or two parts per trillion, unimaginably more sensitive than we are. One part mustard, one trillion parts hot dog, dogs can detect the mustard. To begin to understand what a city block really smells like, there seemed to be one clear course of action: ask a dog. So it happened that one day I said to taking a walk around the block for this book with Finnegan, the earnest, playful black dog in our home now. She later writes, Finn pushed out into the fresh air with enthusiasm. I followed him. Then we stopped. It had occurred to me to ask his preference in our walking route. So instead of pulling him left, parkwood or right, cityward, when we exited the building, I stopped on the steps. Finn, ever cooperative, stopped as well. He perched on the top step, projecting his snouts proudly ahead of him. As a steady light stream of people walked by, they pushed air out of the way as they passed, occasioning plenty of sniffing by Finn. She later goes on to write how Finn determined their walk and how straight lines along sidewalks were not really the way Finn wanted to walk, and that his walk was very much determined by the smell of the city, and things that looked ordinary and everyday to her, like a hydrant or a bench, were in fact really interesting to Finn for a variety of reasons, noting how Finn's nose helped him to both see into the past and into the future. Later on, she writes, minor clashes between my dog's preferences as to where and how a walk should proceed and my own indicated that I was experiencing almost an entirely different block than my dog. I was paying so little attention to most of what was right before us that I'd become a sleepwalker on the sidewalk. What I saw and attended to was exactly what I expected to see. What my dog showed me was that my attention invited along attention's companion, in attention to everything else. If you haven't heard of this book before, I greatly encourage you to check it out and read it. It really is just a fantastic read, and you'll find that your walks around your own city are kind of illuminated in a new and fascinating way. Before I let you go, here are a handful of interesting tidbits about dogs that you might not know, such as dogs are considered to be the first animal that humans domesticated roughly 15,000 years ago. It's currently estimated that there are around 900 million dogs in the world. And interestingly, only 20% of those are thought to be dogs that live in human homes. Most of them are free range of free roaming dogs, with the largest population of dogs currently living in India. If you're interested in watching some cool and interesting videos about urban dogs and some of the ways in which free-living urban dogs might live their lives, definitely check out videos on Moscow's urban dogs. I've added some videos to the animal highlights on the YouTube channel. These are dogs in Moscow that have figured out how to use the subway system. So they hop on and hop off the subway when they want to. They know which stops are really good for access to food. They've devised a whole range of tactics that are useful in begging for food and getting food from passers-by. They sleep on the subway and they've got really interesting social networks. And if that interests you and you're more and you would like to learn and see and watch more about Free Living Dogs, definitely check out Elizabeth Lowe's film Stray, where she follows dogs around Istanbul, noting how they live their lives and the variety of both human and dog connections they make. Thank you once again to Krithikus Tranwassen for being a fantastic guest, to Animals and Philosophy, Politics, Law and Ethics Apple for sponsoring this podcast, to Jeremy John for the logo and Gordon Clark for the Bed Music.

SPEAKER_00: 1:12:12

This is The Animal Turn with me, Claudia Hurzenfelder.com. That's I R O A R P O D.com.