Historical Animal Geographies

Historical analysis is important to animal geographies, yet few works have yet attempted to represent this confluence in understanding the entangled lives of animals and humans. Foregrounding the assertion that geography matters as much as history in terms of how we relate to animals, this book offers unique insight into what life conditions animals encountered, how interrelationships were co-constructed, and how non-human actors came to make their own worlds. It demonstrates how geographical analyses enriches work in historical animal studies, how historical work is important to animal geography, and the need for animals to be recognised as actors in historical geographic research.

Arguing that historical analysis is an important, yet heretofore largely underexplored dimension of scholarship in animal geographies, this book seeks to define historical animal geography as the exploration of how spatially situated human–animal relations have changed through time. This volume centers on the changing relationships among people, animals, and the landscapes they inhabit, taking a spatio-temporal approach to animal studies. Foregrounding the assertion that geography matters as much as history in terms of how humans relate to animals, this collection offers unique insight into the lives of animals past, how interrelationships were co-constructed amongst and between animals and humans, and how nonhuman actors came to make their own worlds. This collection of chapters explores the rich value of work at the contact points between three sub-disciplines, demonstrating how geographical analyses enrich work in historical animal studies, that historical work is important to animal geography, and that recognition of animals as actors can further enrich historical geographic research.