Abstract
The relationships we humans form with our pets condition the spaces we inhabit and how we move around in them. This article discusses relations between humans and their dogs in the city of Madrid during the Covid‐19 lockdown. As an emergency ethnography, this article shows how, in this context, dogs can become the centre of relations between neighbours, facilitating or worsening them, creating new problems and simplifying others.
Biography
Pedro Tomé is a tenured researcher at the Institute of Language, Literature and Anthropology in Madrid, Spain. His research focuses on the political cultural ecology of Mexican ranchers. His email is pedro.tome@csic.es.
This work is the result of an emergency ethnography carried out in my Estrella middle‐class neighbourhood (barrio) in Madrid (Spain), during the first seven weeks of the pandemic lockdown. It is based on numerous informal conversations with people walking their dogs. It follows up on as yet unpublished 6‐month ethnographic fieldwork between 2019 and early 2020.
References
- Bauman, Z. 2003. De peregrino a turista, o una breve historia de la identidad. In Hall S. & Gay P. du. (eds) Cuestiones de identidad cultural, 40–68. Buenos Aires: Amorrortu. [Google Scholar]
- Brandes, S. 2020. Trans‐species custody battles and the reframing of kinship ties. Disparidades. Revista de Antropología 75(1): e009. [Google Scholar]
- Cátedra, M. & Tomé P. 2018. Construyendo la ciudad histórica II: Posturas y ordenanzas en Évora y Ávila en la segunda mitad del siglo XIX. In N. Suárez‐Navaz & Á. Pazos Lugares y formas de lo político, 75–111. Madrid: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. [Google Scholar]
- Fletcher, T. & Platt L. 2018. (Just) a walk with the dog? Animal geographies and negotiating walking spaces. Social & Cultural Geography 19(2): 211–229. [Google Scholar]
- Fox, R. & Gee N.R. 2019. Great expectations: Changing social, spatial and emotional understandings of the companion animal‐human relationship. Social and Cultural Geography 20(1): 43–63. [Google Scholar]
- Haraway, D.J. 2008. When species meet. London: University of Minnesota Press. [Google Scholar]
- Power, E. 2008. Furry families: Making a human‐dog family through home. Social and Cultural Geography 9(5): 535–555. [Google Scholar]
- Sánchez‐Maldonado, J. 2018. Familias‐más‐que‐humanas: Sobre las relaciones humanos/no‐humanos y las posibilidades de una etnografía interespecies en Colombia. Desenvolvimento e Meio Ambiente 49: 305–317. [Google Scholar]
- Strathern, M. 2005. Partial connections. Lanham: Altamira Press. [Google Scholar]
- Tomé, P. 2005. ‘Son como humanos’. Aproximación antropológica a las relaciones naturaleza‐cultura a través de los perros en la ciudad. V.V.A.A. Los animales. Del rito al mito, 123–154. Salamanca: Centro Cultura Tradicional ‘Ángel Carril’. [Google Scholar]