"My dog and I, we need the park": more-than-human agency and the emergence of dog parks in Poland, 2015–2020. (July 2021)
- Record Type:
- Journal Article
- Title:
- "My dog and I, we need the park": more-than-human agency and the emergence of dog parks in Poland, 2015–2020. (July 2021)
- Main Title:
- "My dog and I, we need the park": more-than-human agency and the emergence of dog parks in Poland, 2015–2020
- Authors:
- Włodarczyk, Justyna
- Abstract:
- The article analyzes the emergence of dog parks in Polandi, on the basis of stories from local media, with emphasis on how dog park proponents justify the need for establishing dog runs. Even though official arguments present dog parks as an amenity that offers training opportunities for dogs, the guardians' activism is motivated by the recognition of their dogs' needs for off-leash play and social interaction with others dogs. The guardians often phrase the arguments using language that presents the interests of the human and the canine as inseparable, sometimes even merging the human and the dog through the use of second person plural. The article identifies this type of argumentation as an expression of more-than-human agency: the humans not only see themselves as speaking on behalf of their dogs, but see themselves as speaking with their dogs. However, the article also identifies social and cultural factors that have made dog parks a desirable amenity in Poland. These include the parks' associations with progress, modernity and broadly understood "Western" culture. The drive to build parks is thus also tied with the desire for a spatial emblem of the recognition of the human-canine bond. These social and cultural factors also shape the hybrid agency at work in the Polish dog park debates.
- Is Part Of:
- Cultural geographies. Volume 28:Number 3(2021)
- Journal:
- Cultural geographies
- Issue:
- Volume 28:Number 3(2021)
- Issue Display:
- Volume 28, Issue 3 (2021)
- Year:
- 2021
- Volume:
- 28
- Issue:
- 3
- Issue Sort Value:
- 2021-0028-0003-0000
- Page Start:
- 495
- Page End:
- 511
- Publication Date:
- 2021-07
- Subjects:
- animal studies -- commons -- dogs -- dog parks -- dog runs -- Eastern Europe -- enclosures -- fences -- pet-keeping -- post-socialist cities -- public space -- urban space
Environmental policy -- Periodicals
Human ecology -- Periodicals
Human geography -- Periodicals
304.23 - Journal URLs:
- https://journals.sagepub.com/home/cgj ↗
http://cgj.sagepub.com/content/by/year ↗
http://www.uk.sagepub.com/home.nav ↗ - DOI:
- 10.1177/1474474020987249 ↗
- Languages:
- English
- ISSNs:
- 1474-4740
- Deposit Type:
- Legaldeposit
- View Content:
- Available online (eLD content is only available in our Reading Rooms) ↗
- Physical Locations:
- British Library DSC - BLDSS-3PM
British Library HMNTS - ELD Digital store - Ingest File:
- 15936.xml