ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book aims to bring a sensitivity and ethico-political charge to animal geography, a sub-discipline of human geography that has, experienced a burst of energy and interest. It defines and explores distinctly critical animal geographies. The book organizes in three thematic sections: politics, intersections, and hierarchies. It presents different strands of critical thought – anarchist, posthuman, feminist – with analyses of how animal politics are enacted. The book highlights the production of two different caged bodies and spaces: animals on display at the zoo and humans incarcerated in the prison. It considers encounters or institutions in which species hierarchies are actively negotiated, challenged, transgressed or restructured. The book elaborates how Critical Animal Geographies aims to both build from this foundation and offer new lines of inquiry for the burgeoning field of animal geographies.
