Ambiguous rats and ambivalent mice: crossing the great divides in scientific practice

Abstract

The encounters between animals and humans are not static. They are practiced, dynamic and ongoing. Therefore direction, velocity and the way that different power relations converge to enable or prevent movement is fundamental to the understandings of humanimal encounters. Indeed we may consider animals as movements – that we expect them to move and to move in particular ways. A cat stalks in a feline manner, a pig trots, falcons dive, and whales breech. Scaling these movements beyond the individual we get shoals, flocks and herds, which circle, migrate and define territories. Thus to comprehend the animal question is to comprehend the primacy of movement. This book therefore brings together a variety of work from a range of disciplines to begin to address the complex and diverse ways that speed, direction and velocity shape humanimal interaction. Show more