Partial Encounters: Exploring More-Than-Human Entanglements in Berlin’s Animal Enclosures
Partial Encounters: Exploring More-Than-Human Entanglements in Berlin’s Animal Enclosures
Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Ahead of Print.
Drawing on ethnographic research, this article examines a relatively unexplored set of urban scenarios for human–animal interactions in Berlin, Germany, which I have named “animal enclosures.” Animal enclosures are public spaces where people see and pet captive domesticated farmed animals. The article first unpacks those locations by paying attention to their structural and managerial composition and discusses their ethical implications regarding welfare and captivity. Additionally, focusing on two enclosures, the Tierpark Neukölln and the Kinderbauernhof in Görlitzer Park, it problematizes captivity as an infrastructure limiting animals’ mobility and simultaneously allowing and restring human–animal encounters. Right after, it explores the notions of encounter and contact zones and uses them as analytical resources to analyze how human visitors interact with animals in those urban scenarios mediated by different levels of animal captivity. Finally, it introduces the idea of partial encounters, which are incomplete and biased more-than-human modes of engagement.
Drawing on ethnographic research, this article examines a relatively unexplored set of urban scenarios for human–animal interactions in Berlin, Germany, which I have named “animal enclosures.” Animal enclosures are public spaces where people see and pet captive domesticated farmed animals. The article first unpacks those locations by paying attention to their structural and managerial composition and discusses their ethical implications regarding welfare and captivity. Additionally, focusing on two enclosures, the Tierpark Neukölln and the Kinderbauernhof in Görlitzer Park, it problematizes captivity as an infrastructure limiting animals’ mobility and simultaneously allowing and restring human–animal encounters. Right after, it explores the notions of encounter and contact zones and uses them as analytical resources to analyze how human visitors interact with animals in those urban scenarios mediated by different levels of animal captivity. Finally, it introduces the idea of partial encounters, which are incomplete and biased more-than-human modes of engagement.