We Don't Make Places On Our Own

I recently read Tim Cresswell’s Place: A Short Introduction (2004), and was struck by how different concepts about what makes a place can be so thoroughly and imaginatively explored, and yet never once mention non-human animals in more detail than a hand waved vaguely in the direction of ‘nature’. Yet animals were lingering silently behind all of Creswell’s main points, and I’ll give an overview below.

Places are not static; they are continuously created anew by the activities of their inhabitants.

Creswell talks about people all over the world engaging in place making activities. Unless he is using the term ‘people’ to refer not only to homo sapiens sapiens, but the peoples of the non-human races as well (and I’m thinking not), he is seriously missing a trick here. Animals are arguably more inside their environments than we are. I may sit at my desk at work for eight hours a day, but my mind is somewhere else for at least seven. As mentioned in a previous post, pretty much every animal engages more with its surroundings than do humans. Animals are constantly in the process of exploring and modifying their environments, which is part of what is so horrific about barren factory farm stalls, where they are unable to satisfy these instincts.

Place is used in the construction of ideas about who/what belongs where, and who/what does not belong

Creswell explores this idea through looking at homeless people and homosexuals. One might explore it further (in a pretty heft tome) by looking at the placement/displacement of animals. We take them out of places they belong. We put them places they don’t belong. We make judgement calls on where they can fit in and where they can’t. We create whole races, like the domestic dog, by taking a species out of one environment and making it reliant on another.

Culture transforms the natural environment

By ‘culture’ Cresswell refers specifically, of course, to human culture, i.e. positioning nature/animals outside of the sphere of cultural places. Chris Philo, in his essay Animals, Geography and the City: Notes on Inclusions and Exclusions challenges the notion of non-human animals existing outside the sphere of human culture.

…’the possibility is raised here of thinking about animals as a social group with at least some potential for what might be termed ‘transgression’ or even ‘resistance’ when wriggling out of the cages, fields and wildernesses allotted to them by their human neighbours…’(In Animal Geographies, eds Wolch & Emel, 1998).’

To dwell in a place you must understand and follow its rules

This is one of the points that Foucault makes about his Heterotopias, and similar to Henri LeFebvre’s conception of Social Space. Socially constructed places have unwritten rules, which must be followed by the inhabitants. A single species tends to understand the nuanced rules of its habitat; interlopers must pick up on these or face being seen as transgressors and trouble makers. The majority rule in most situations, except in those predominantly non-human habitats culturally constructed by humans for other species. Zoos and animal shelters are two places where animals are often seen to transgress in ‘their own’ environments. Yet they are following rules – just not ours.

Modern places are increasingly marked by a new ‘placelessness’

This again speaks to Foucault’s Heterotopias, abstract spaces which are constructed out of a collection of other spaces, for example gardens, or museums. These spaces become ‘placeless’ because they lack their own intrinsic meaningfulness.  This appears at first blush to be a specifically human construct. But what of animal collectors, such as magpies? Is the magpie’s fabled nest of appropriated items a heterotopia?

In modern society spaces are increasingly ‘consumed’ through photography, cinematography, tourism and other media.

Technologies allow and encourage the fetishisation of places. We put pictures of foreign places on our living room walls and on our screensavers. Undeniably, animals feature largely in our consumption of other places; a Serengeti scene features a herd of wildebeest, an ocean scene features seagulls. It could be said that the place is only complete, and therefore ready for consumption, when it features the animal inhabitant associated with it.

We have an irresistible urge to mark out boundaries, barriers and frontiers.

This is talked about as a fascinating human phenomenon, but this is one irresistible instinct that we share with our brothers-from-another-mothers, aka, all the other species. Take a look at Robert Ardrey’s The Territorial Imperative (1966) for an alluring insight into the ways that species mark out ‘my land’ vs ‘your land’.

Obviously, as an anthrozoologist, I see animals everywhere, present in every philosophical debate, every pop culture phenomenon. Yet, for all the intelligent and insightful piece of writing on Place: An Introduction, there is an elephant in the room, and Creswell either doesn’t see it, or doesn’t see an audience for it. It emerged this week that there are something close to 9 million individual species on our planet. To see only ourselves is not to see at all.

Animal Sensuality

A few months ago I visited an ashram named Skanda Vale, near Lampeter in Wales. Our  MA Anthrozoology group went there to talk to the resident Swamis about their relationships with the animals living at Skanda Vale, which covers an entire valley, and is home to indigenous and exotic species, including donkeys, goats, rescued poultry birds, a herd of water buffalo, and an elephant named Valli, gifted to the ashram by Sri Lanka. Although the ashram brands itself as a ‘multi-faith community’, the main precepts that it is run by are Hindu in origin, and consequently it is a place of pilgrimage for Hindus from across the globe. Within Britain, Skanda Vale is most commonly known through the media coverage surrounding the killing of the bull Shambo. In 2007 Shambo was diagnosed with bovine TB, and the Swamis and other human residents of the ashram entered into a long and bitter dispute with Defra regarding Shambo’s fate. Despite Skanda Vale arguing that Shambo was sacred to them, Defra prevailed, and Shambo was destroyed.

We were forewarned that the episode with Shambo was still raw in people’s minds, and the topic wasn’t raised. Instead, the swamis spoke in a more general way about their respect for the animals that they share their lives with, with many of them devoted sole carers for a particular species living at the ashram, spending almost all their waking hours caring for their charges. One swami happened to mention that caring for the resident herd of water buffalo was a good way for him to practice mindfulness.

This mindfulness idea has been popping into my head ever since the ashram visit. The aim of mindfulness is to be able to dwell completely inside the present moment, with no thought of the past or of the future. It’s considered a holy state to be in for many religions. I’ve tried it. It’s really, really hard to sustain for longer than a few moments. But somehow its always easier with animals around. For a couple of years now I’ve been walking Battersea Dogs Home’s canine residents every Sunday, and I think I understand how the swami is aided by his buffalo companions. It’s a tired old cliché that animals live in the moment, but that tired old cliché is true. And you can’t help living there with them.

It’s August. It hasn’t been a summer to write home about, but we’ve had a few idyllic blue sky days, and today was one of them. With sheer, exultant joy, a six stone Husky, (who up until now has been the very picture of aloof poise) launches himself into the cool waters of a paddling pool. The split-your-face grin of a fat little Staffie bitch as she collapses belly-first into a patch of moist green grass and clover, and splays her little legs behind her like a frog, is one of the sweetest things I’ve ever seen. In my capacity as dog walker, I spend all winter wishing it was summer, and all summer dreading winter. When have I ever just engaged with my surroundings the way that these dogs do? They have the mindfulness of a Buddha (if not the calmness), and it takes no effort at all.

In the lushly written The Spell of The Sensuous (1996) ecologist David Abram advocates the deeply mindful use of all our senses in regaining a connection with nature and our surroundings, as a way of reminding ourselves what we have to lose, before it is too late.

Without the oxygenating breath of the forests, without the clutch of gravity and the tumbled magic of river rapids, we have no distance from our technologies, no way of assessing their limitations, no way to keep ourselves from turning into them…Caught up in a mass of abstractions, our attention hypnotized by a host of human-made technologies that only reflect us back to ourselves, it is all too easy for us to forget our carnal inherence in a more-than-human matrix of sensations and sensibilities. Our bodies have formed themselves in delicate reciprocity with the manifold textures, sounds and shapes of an animate earth – our eyes have evolved in subtle interaction with other eyes, as our ears are attuned by their very structure to the howling of wolves and the honking of geese. To shut ourselves off from these other voices, to continue by our lifestyles to condemn these other sensibilities to the oblivion of extinction, is to rob our own senses of their integrity, and to rob our minds of their coherence. We are human only in contact, and conviviality, with what is not human (Abram, 1996, my italics).

Abram’s frequent use throughout the book of technology as a counterpoint to sensuality can’t help but hark back to Andrew Feenberg’s work on the Philosophy of Technology, and the Determinist viewpoint that technology, rather than being human controlled, is in fact, controlling us. The new awareness that allowing ourselves to experience the ‘spell’ of sensuality can awaken in us, just might be enough to break the ‘spell’ of technology, that we are currently (considered to be) under.

Animals make us mindful, and not just in a vicarious way, but in a deeply sensual way too. As Abram points out, we have evolved to be tuned into them. Think about the sound that crickets make on a summer evening, or of a bee buzzing past your ear. The way that warm dog fur feels on your palm, the way it smells.  The sight of a glossy, red ladybird against a green leaf. The easiest way for us to spread our awareness into our surroundings is for those surroundings to have animals in them. Sure, cars could work too. The sound of engines revving. The taste of smog-air in your mouth. It’s no wonder we’ve retreated into personal space bubbles with sensory stimulation like that on offer. And, as Feenberg points out, man-made things simply reflect us back at ourselves. There is no sensory journey to compare to that of experiencing another being as it experiences us, and engages with its surroundings.

It’s strange to think that we might be able to save the future by thinking simply about the present… if only for a little while.

Suckling the Witch's Familiar

Medieval Britons, and those even as recent as 18^th century Britons, saw witchcraft everywhere. The witches in question, although sometimes male and occasionally of the ruling elite, most often came in the form of rural village women, and were most often accused by their own neighbours. Interestingly, in the brilliantly titled Malevolent Nurture (1995), Deborah Willis finds that the accusers, too, were mainly females; the neighbours of the indicted.

Proof of witchcraft came in the form of muttered so-called ‘curses’ followed by the target of the curse experiencing some sort of ill fortune; failed crops, a sow that wouldn’t feed her piglets, even a death. The other form of proof came in the testimony of those who had seen the accused with a small animal, or animals. The accuser might have seen the ‘witch’ leaving food out for a dog or tending to an injured bird. She might even be known to house animals in her cottage overnight.

It was common knowledge that a witch would have a familiar, and indeed there are numerous testimonies from self-confessed witches (although the methods of torture used in order to glean a confession could be brutal, and it’s hard to pinpoint who truthfully considered themselves a witch) regarding their species and special names. Depending on the time and locality, this familiar was alternately seen as a demon that did the witch’s bidding, or the devil himself, guiding and instructing the witch whilst in the guise of an animal. The animal in question, then, was not considered to be an ‘evil animal’ per se, rather, it was seen as a vessel, a container for the demonic spirit within. Animals were non-reasoning beings and did not have the capacity to be evil in and of themselves.

Once the accused was brought before trial there was one surefire way to determine whether she was a witch or not. This was the Devil’s Teat. A mark on the witch’s body, which could look like anything from an actual third nipple, to a scar, birthmark or mole, and with which it was said that the witch was able to suckle her familiar, either with milk (which was believed to be generated from blood) or with blood itself. Once the mark was found (and it inevitably was, a woman would have to be impossibly blemish free to escape) it was considered solid evidence of the witch’s maleficium.

Having taken the suspected witch, she is placed in the middle of a room upon a stool or table, cross legged, or in some other uneasy posture, to which if she submits not, she is then bound with cords; there she is watched and kept without meat or sleep for the space of 24 hours for (they say) within that time they shall see her imp come and suck. A little hole is likewise made in the door for the imp to come in at; and lest it might come in some less discernable shape, they that watch are taught to be ever and anon sweeping the room, and if they see any spiders or flies, to kill them. And if they cannot kill them, then they may be sure they are her imps. (John Gaul, Select Cases of Conscience touching Witches and Witchcrafts, 1646)

In Malevolent Nurture Willis borrows heavily from the work of Melanie Klein to demonstrate how women who were often past the child-bearing age, either widowed or spinsters, and who might be poor and forced to ask other neighbours for help or charity, were prime targets for the accusation of witchcraft. Their muttered ‘curses’ were frequently a response to neighbours telling them essentially to get lost when they asked for help. In psychoanalytic terms the neighbour, often younger than the accused, who had rebuffed the plea for charity can be seen to identify the older woman’s helplessness as a lack of maternal grace and dignity. In psychoanalysis every older woman represents ‘the mother’, and therefore, when ‘the mother’ is seen to plead for help ‘the child’ is put in an uncomfortable, guilt-inducing position.

Willis is strongly into the psychoanalytic interpretation of the patterns of these events, which may or may not apply to these cases. If we allow for this train of thought though, it could arguably be said to follow on that the disgruntled neighbour, seeing the poor old woman nurturing or caring for a small animal, considers this a perverse enough action to be an indicator of more sinister forces at work.

1. The old (or old-er) woman can barely afford to keep herself
2. The older woman might have often asked for charity for herself
3. The older woman is seen caring for a dumb animal
4. There must be a reason for the old woman to want to care for the animal.

There must be a reason for the old woman to want to care for the animal. It was not understood that an old woman might try to fulfil her urge to nurture with the only thing that she was able to help – a small animal. It was not seen that the old woman, often maligned within her community, might feel a sense of appreciation from the rabbit, or the dog, or the sparrow that she helped. The only explanation for a woman to be taking the time to care for something small, vulnerable, and distinctly non-human, was that the animal was not an animal at all.

Strikingly, despite the Europe-wide belief in witches, the notion of the ‘sucking familiar’ is actually geographically limited to England (see M.A. Murray, Witches’ Familiars in England). How the transgression of feeding an animal with some bread or a bowl of milk could become, in people’s minds, all the more deviant with the idea of the actual suckling of the animal on the witch’s own flesh, shows us the deep sense of threat felt by those (i.e. the majority) who could not conceive of a relationship between a human and an animal. Understanding this viewpoint requires a deeper investigation into the more general attitudes towards animals of the time.