S3E1: Right to the City with Marie Carmen Shingne
In this episode Claudia speaks to Marie Carmen Shingne about the concept ‘Right to the City’ and how it could be applied to animals. They open up this season, focusing on animals and the urban, by asking whether animals have any claims to the city.
Marie Carmen Shingne is a doctoral candidate in the Sociology Department at Michigan State University with specializations in animal studies and global urban studies. Her dissertation research is focused on the experiences of the slum residents and street dogs in the Indian city of Pune and what these experiences tell us about power in and access to urban spaces and resources. Using multispecies ethnographic methods, her research asks: how is the urban space currently shared and negotiated by different urban human and nonhuman residents, in what ways are the human and nonhuman residents impacted by these negotiations, and what does an inclusive and equitable city look like according to various stakeholders? Marie Carmen can be reached via email at abneyma1@msu.edu
Mentioned:
The more-than-human right to the city: A multispecies reevaluation by Marie Carmen Shingne;
Among the Bone Eaters: Encounters with Hyenas in Harar by Marcus Baynes-Rock;
Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights by Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka;
Street dogs at the intersection of colonialism and informality: ‘Subaltern animism’ as a posthuman critique of Indian cities by Yamini Narayanan; and
The biopolitics of animal being and welfare: dog control and care in the UK and India by Krithika Srinivasan
"In India... dogs do not necessarily have to be owned; they are not always already defined as human property and therefore restricted to living in the pre‐determined roles of human pets or working animals or experimental objects in laboratories. Dogs in India can be in the absence of a human owner" - Krithika Srinivasan (2013).
Thank you to Animals in Philosophy, Politics, Law and Ethics (A.P.P.L.E) for sponsoring this podcast; the Sonic Arts Studio and the Sonic Arts of Place Laboratory (SAPLab) for sponsoring this season; Gordon Clarke (Instagram: @_con_sol_) for the bed music, Jeremy John (Website) for the logo, and Hannah Hunter for the Animal Highlight