Consider the (Feral) Cat
Ferality, Biopower, and the Ethics of Predation
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12418756 |
|---|---|
| Authors | N Holm (0000-0003-0391-939X, English and Media Studies, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Massey University Wellington New Zealand, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 30 |
| Issue | 7 |
| Pages | 781-797 |
| Publication date | 2020-04-27 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Society and Animals (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1063-1119 • E-ISSN: 1568-5306 |
| Publisher | Brill (PUBLISHER • NL) |
| DOI | 10.1163/15685306-bja10006 |
| OpenAlex | W3109119242 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 27 |
Cats confound clear distinctions: not least that between the human and natural worlds. As a consequence, they are prime examples of “ferality”: a category of nonhuman subjects who are neither domestic, nor wild, but instead move between those realms. It is argued that that potential for movement informs particular social anxieties and debates that emerge regarding cat hunting behaviors. Drawing on the biopolitical work of Michel Foucault, in conjunction with the ethical paradox of the “predator problem,” it is argued that the ethical indictment of cat predation is best understood as a consequence of cats’ abilities to move across the different regulatory and ethical spaces of the home and the wild. Ferality thus functions as a means by which human ethics are brought to bear on nonhuman nature, and predation is thereby framed as an unnecessary, “unnatural,” and even evil act
Biology · Biopower · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Indictment · Non-human · Political science · Politics · Predation · Sociology · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Gothic Literature and Media Analysis · Human-Animal Interaction Studies · Law · Philosophy · Ecology
Wilderness and the American mind.
Cat Wars
In it together
Frontiers of Justice
Cat Wars
If Schrödinger’s cat miaows in the suburbs, will anyone hear
Rabbits, Stoats and the Predator Problem
Should the Lion Eat Straw Like the Ox? Animal Ethics and the Predation Problem
Policing Nature
Is extermination to be the legacy of Mary Gilbert’s cat
Consider the Squirrel
Counting Species
Animal Liberation
Managing Love and Death at the Zoo
Biodiversity, Purity, and Death
Conservation biopolitics and the sustainability episteme
Predation, Pain, and Evil
Public Perceptions of Domestic Cats and Preferences for Feral Cat Management in the Southeastern United States
Wandering Cats
Behaviors and Attitudes towards Semi-Owned Cats
Necropolitics
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,6 |
| Citation span | 2021 - 2025 (5) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |