Embracing self and others
Encountering animals in Philadelphia murals
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12145480 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Mario Luis Cardozo (Kutztown University) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 40 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 165-202 |
| Publication date | 2023-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Cultural Geography (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0887-3631 • E-ISSN: 1940-6320 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/08873631.2023.2250978 |
| OpenAlex | W4386350052 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 52 |
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, has numerous murals that relate expressions of care about different culture groups, nonhuman animals, the local urban ecosystem, and the environment at large. I discuss these themes in journaled encounters with animals in murals while visiting select Philadelphia neighborhoods during several years. My autoethnographic research is based on photography and making connections with the mural subjects, their symbolism, and related urban spaces. I anchor this study in the literatures of therapeutic landscapes and animality discourses in order to examine how animal mural spaces contribute to establishing “therapeutic assemblages”. My analysis draws me to a rich sense of locals’ care about/for humans and nonhumans that are at times perceived as subaltern, and the local and global environments these animals inhabit. I conclude that Philadelphia’s dynamic landscape alternates in taking down and reaffirming therapeutic places as the city is reconfigured by both gentrification and resistance to urban renewal.KEYWORDS: Therapeutic landscapesmuralsPhiladelphiaanimality AcknowledgmentsI would like to thank Glenn McKibben for our walks exploring Philadelphia murals and her academic work on the topic, which fueled the pursuit of my own research on urban art. I am thankful to Brady Copp for our many excursions to visit murals and the related conversations we had, which help me sort through my feelings towards and understanding of Philadelphia’s urban art and neighborhoods. I am grateful to Courtney Berne, Flavia Lake, Zoe Malot, and Jason Luger for recommendations on relevant literature. I would also like to thank the editor of the Journal of Cultural Geography, Steven Schnell, and two anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful comments and valuable suggestions. Finally, I am thankful for the wonderful work of all muralists, street artists, and urban-art initiatives discussed in this article.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationFundingSelf-funded.Notes on contributorsMario Luis CardozoMario Luis Cardozo is an Associate Professor at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, where he teaches Geography classes on techniques and human-environmental themes. Mario's research interests include rural land use and conflict, environmental justice, conservation, urban change, and street art
Aesthetics · Art · Ethnography · Feeling · Gentrification · Mural · Sociology · Visual arts · Anthropology · Geographies of human-animal interactions · History · Psychology · Public Spaces through Art · Social Psychology · Visual Culture and Art Theory
Anti-Trump Graffiti and Street Art
Afro-Dog
Philadelphia Murals and the Stories They Tell
Butterfly Crossings
Unsettling Participation by Foregrounding More-than-Human Relations in Digital Forests
Cultivating our humanity
From therapeutic landscapes to healthy spaces, places and practices
Indigenous environmental justice and sustainability
Public Strategies for the Promotion of Urban Art
Therapeutic landscapes and wellbeing in later life
The haptic pleasures of ground-feel
Bittersweet ambivalence
Perhaps something of beauty can grow
Gentrification and the Right to the City
Graffiti or Street Art? Negotiating the Moral Geographies of the Creative City
Gentrification as the appropriation of therapeutic ‘diversity’
Latinos & Racism in the Trump Era
Quarantine encounters with digital animals
The Ashgate research companion to media geography
Beyond the Public Art Machine
Performing health in place
Landscape, care and the relational self
Beyond the clearing
Assemblage and geography
Restorying the self, restoring place
Autoethnography
Therapeutic spaces of care farming
Healthy Food Stores, Greenlining and Food Gentrification
Why do Graffiti Writers Write on Murals? The Birth, Life, and Slow Death of Freeway Murals in Los Angeles
Therapeutic landscapes and non-human animals
Decolonizing Environmental Justice Studies
Stigmatized places as therapeutic landscapes
Vengeful Animals, Involuntary Mourning, and the Ethics of Ndyuka Autonomy
A Phenomenological Research Design Illustrated
Homeless People and Their Dogs
Toward a Critical Environmental Justice Studies
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |