Animal geography

Animal geography is a subfield of the nature–society/human–environment branch of geography as well as a part of the larger, interdisciplinary umbrella of human–animal studies (HAS). Animal geography is defined as the study of "the complex entanglings of human–animal relations with space, place, location, environment and landscape" or "the study of where, when, why and how nonhuman animals intersect with human societies". Recent work advances these perspectives to argue about an ecology of relations in which humans and animals are enmeshed, taking seriously the lived spaces of animals themselves and their sentient interactions with not just human but other nonhuman bodies as well. The Animal Geography Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers was founded in 2009 by Monica Ogra and Julie Urbanik, and the Animal Geography Research Network was founded in 2011 by Daniel Allen.

The first wave of animal geography, known as zoogeography, came to prominence as a geographic subfield from the late 1800s through the early part of the 20th century. During this time the study of animals was seen as a key part of the discipline and the goal was "the scientific study of animal life with reference to the distribution of animals on the earth and the mutual influence of environment and animals upon each other". The animals that were the focus of studies were almost exclusively wild animals and zoogeographers were building on the new theories of evolution and natural selection. They mapped the evolution and movement of species across time and space and also sought to understand how animals adapted to different ecosystems. "The ambition was to establish general laws of how animals arranged themselves across the earth's surface or, at smaller scales, to establish patterns of spatial co variation between animals and other environmental factors." Key works include Newbigin's Animal Geography, Bartholomew, Clarke, and Grimshaw's Atlas of Zoogeography, and Allee and Schmidt's Ecological Animal Geography. Bennett called for a 'cultural animal geography' that focused on the interactions of animals and human cultures such as subsistence hunting and fishing. The shift from the first wave to the second wave of animal geography had to do with the species being studied. Second wave animal geography brought domesticated livestock into the view instead of just focusing on wildlife. For the next several decades animal geography, as cultural ecology, was dominated by research into the origins of domestication, cultural rituals around domestication, and different cultures livestock relations (sedentary versus nomadic herding). Key works include Simoons and Simoons' A Ceremonial Ox of India, Gades' work on the guinea pig, and Cansdale's Animals and Man. Baldwin provides an excellent overview of second wave animal geography research.

In the early 1990s several things happened to cause geographers with an interest in animals and human–animal studies to rethink what was possible within animal geography. The 1980s and early 1990s saw the rise of the worldwide animal advocacy movement addressing everything from pet overpopulation to saving endangered species, exposing cruelty to animals in industrial farming (factory farms or concentrated animal feeding operations), and protesting circuses, the use of fur, and hunting – all an effort to raise the visibility of how humans treat non human others amongst the general public. In the academy, biologists and ethologists were studying animal behavior and species loss/discovery raising awareness about the experiential lives of animals as well as their perilous existence alongside humans. Social scientists were reassessing what it means to be a subject and breaking into the black box of nature to explore new understandings of the relations between humans and the rest of the planet. Animal geographers realized there was a whole spectrum of human–animal relations that should be addressed from a geographic perspective. At the forefront of this third wave of animal geography was Tuan's work on pets in Dominance and Affection and a special topics issue of the journal Environment and Planning D: Society and Space edited by Wolch and Emel. The two key features of the third wave of animal geography that distinguish it from the earlier waves are (1) an expanded notion of human–animal relations to include all time periods and locations of human–animal encounters (rather than just wildlife or livestock), and (2) attempts to bring in the animals themselves as subjects. Since the 1995 publication there has been an explosion of case studies and theorizing. Key works that bring together third wave animal geography are Wolch and Emel's Animal Geographies: Place, Politics and Identity in the Nature–Culture Borderlands, Philo and Wilbert's Animal Spaces, Beastly Places: New Geographies of Human–Animal Relations, Urbanik's Placing Animals: An Introduction to the Geography of Human–Animal Relations, Gillespie and Collard's Critical Animal Geographies: Politics, Intersections and Hierarchies in a Multispecies World, and Wilcox and Rutherford's Historical Animal Geographies.

Despite an entire menagerie of animals being the subjects of the animal geographies project, certain species have received more attention than others. These creatures have been ideal 'model' organisms for asking questions about animals in geographical thought.

Elephants have featured most prominently in animal geography, beginning with the work of Whatmore & Thorne on the spatial configurations of wildlife. They ask questions about how the African elephant Duchess is configured by different practices in zoos, contrasting her with counterparts in the wild. Whatmore & Thorne's exploration of becoming elephant was a milestone in animal and more than human geographies. Asian elephants have also been the feature of historical animal geographies, the subjects of animal geography methods, interdisciplinary biogeographies. They have been the mainstay of new work on cosmopolitan ecologies, and Wilcox's work on jaguars in the Americas also explore socially constructed affective logics and their impacts on conservation priorities across a range of geographies and time periods.