New publication by Sophie Schramm on the topic of awkward animals

Article

Schramm, S. (2025). Awkward animals. Urban Geography, 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1080/02723638.2025.2561946

Keywords

urban animals/ more-than-human cities/ urban governance and planning

Author

Sophie Schramm

Abstract

Urban animals are subject to distinct regimes of authority working towards making urban spaces inhabitable or uninhabitable for them. These regimes build on, and reproduce, categorisations of animals, for example, as domestic or wild, or as protected or invasive species. The presence of two specific animal species in Hagen and Wuppertal, the wild boar and the raccoon, as well as evolving debates within and beyond the regimes of authority supposed to regulate them, expose the limits of, and breaks between, these regimes as well as contestations beyond them. Thus, raccoons and wild boars are “awkward animals” in that they question the regimes of authority regulating their presence in cities and related spatial orderings; bring to the fore the contestations, negotiations and subversions already inherent in dominant visions of the urban and animals therein; and inspire new perspectives on urban place-making with and beyond animals.

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