Deathly storytelling in the ecological city
How pigeons became falcon food in Baltimore, Maryland
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3978003 |
|---|---|
| Authors | John-Henry Pitas (Department of Geography and Environmental Systems, University of Maryland, Baltimore, Maryland, USA, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 23 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 29-46 |
| Publication date | 2022-01-02 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Social & Cultural Geography (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1464-9365 • E-ISSN: 1470-1197 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/14649365.2021.1950822 |
| OpenAlex | W3180005074 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
| References cited | 26 |
Cities are important sites of accumulation within capitalism, but also home for many humans and non-humans. Rock pigeons (Columba livia) are ubiquitous, but not always welcome, and are thus subjected to a variety of exclusionary tactics – including killing. On the other hand, charismatic non-humans like peregrine falcons (Falco perigrinus) are often encouraged to occupy prominent urban spaces by local government, conservation groups, businesses, and media. This paper explores how the presence of pigeons and falcons came to be valued differently within the urban context of Baltimore, Maryland, USA. I examine how the stories being told about falcons and pigeons play an important role in defining their value, in particular in relation to the city's role as a site of capitalist accumulation. Baltimore specific stories which posit pigeons as an ecologically important food source for falcons, and credit falcons with reducing urban pigeon populations imbue both species of non-humans with particular values in relation to one another. My analysis reveals that new values are placed on non-human death in the city through storytelling, and, in an imagined triumph of capitalism, the city is redeemed as a space of human and non-human flourishing in the face of anthropogenic environmental contamination
Archaeology · Art · Capitalism · Charisma · Context (archaeology · Environmental ethics · Face (sociological concept · Flourishing · Geography · Narrative · Political science · Politics · Relation (database · Social science · Sociology · Storytelling · Value (mathematics · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Law · Wildlife Conservation and Criminology Analyses · Wildlife Ecology and Conservation
Readme First for a User's Guide to Qualitative Methods
The Global Pigeon
Capitalism in the web of life
Toward a Richer Account of Restorative Practices
Decolonizing School Science
Economies of Death
Ecosystem services
An Ecofeminist Narrative of Urban Nature Connection
Ecologies of actor-networks and (non)social labor within the urban political economies of nature
Roadside Memorials
Trash Animals
Discourses, bodies, and the production of space
Governing the Wild
Lively commodities and encounter value
Dead liveness/living deadness
Biodiversity, Purity, and Death
Life for Sale? The Politics of Lively Commodities
Of place' or 'of people
Producing (extra)ordinary death on the farm
Capitalist Natures in Five Orientations
How Pigeons Became Rats
The power of (dis)placement
| Unique citing works | 5 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,25 |
| Citation span | 2022 - 2026 (5) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 5 |