ABSTRACT
The aim of this chapter is to draw out considerations on how ethical relations between humans and non-humans (and in this instance, animals) are deeply uneven, and on how this unevenness has distinct spatial dimensions which require a geographical sensibility within any study addressing them. As Casey (1998: ix) asserts, ‘nothing we do is unplaced…. How could we fail to recognise this primal fact?’ Human—non-human relations are inevitably embedded in the complex spatialities of the world. The myriad encounters which make up human—nonhuman relations shape and are shaped by this spatiality in an incredibly rich (in ontological terms) series of ‘spatial formations’. Any consideration of human—nonhuman relations has to confront this geography of the spaces and places of encounter. In particular, my focus is on the ethical implications which may follow from looking at the world in this way.
