Pet Names: A Critical Geography of Non-human Identity Construction in Auckland City

Abstract

In this research, my observations of non-human mammals in Auckland City demonstrate how space and identity are mutually constructed. I pay particular attention to the ‘namings’ that serve to situate other species into places (both physical and academic). These ‘pet names’ are explored in terms of the creation, re-creation and co-creation of physical and ideological boundaries, boundaries that emerge through human categorisation, animal agency and interspecies encounter. In Auckland, spaces of human/nonhuman encounter are moderated by narratives and practices that maintain distance between species. ‘Pet-names’ confer identities upon non-human animals relational to the spaces they are deemed to appropriately inhabit. Such boundaries result in the (at least partial) construction of animal identities. Yet animals themselves do not always pay heed to boundaries, and may indeed establish their own as well or instead. As such, individual ‘humanimals’ transgress boundaries to form interspecies bonds and new spaces of kinship. Empirically, this thesis therefore examines Auckland as a multispecies space, with special consideration of the boundaries – and subsequent transgressions – that are constructed between species. Drawing on Deleuze and Guattari’s concepts of striation and territorialisation(s), I observe spaces of human-nonhuman encounter through four case studies: a) symbolic spaces (urban farms); b) privatised space (Auckland Zoo); c) public space (stray cats); and d) personal space (kinship bonds with canines). Through the medium of these case studies I address not only how these spaces are experienced, but also how we, as social scientists, apply methodological narratives and practices that often contribute to the construction of categorical ‘animals’. Reflecting on and re-assembling methods to regard animals as co-producers of knowledge is a parallel transgression, this time of academic boundaries. My thesis thus moves from more distanced approaches toward the construction of a hybridised, ‘inter-special’ academic space. I conclude that animal identities and space are relational, and that both are constructed as a result of more-than-human narratives and bodily interactions with places and other creatures. Auckland's spaces are therefore often the result of multi-species interactions, and by positioning animals as ‘coauthors’ in research we are better able to articulate their agency as both space and knowledge producers.