ABSTRACT

Cities are important sites of accumulation within capitalism, but also home for many humans and non-humans. Rock pigeons (Columba livia) are ubiquitous, but not always welcome, and are thus subjected to a variety of exclusionary tactics – including killing. On the other hand, charismatic non-humans like peregrine falcons (Falco perigrinus) are often encouraged to occupy prominent urban spaces by local government, conservation groups, businesses, and media. This paper explores how the presence of pigeons and falcons came to be valued differently within the urban context of Baltimore, Maryland, USA. I examine how the stories being told about falcons and pigeons play an important role in defining their value, in particular in relation to the city’s role as a site of capitalist accumulation. Baltimore specific stories which posit pigeons as an ecologically important food source for falcons, and credit falcons with reducing urban pigeon populations imbue both species of non-humans with particular values in relation to one another. My analysis reveals that new values are placed on non-human death in the city through storytelling, and, in an imagined triumph of capitalism, the city is redeemed as a space of human and non-human flourishing in the face of anthropogenic environmental contamination.

摘要

城市是资本主义积累的重要场所，也是许多人类和非人类的家园。岩鸽（Columba livia）无处不在，但并不总是受欢迎，因此会受到各种排斥策略的影响——包括杀戮。另一方面，有魅力的非人类，如游隼（Falco perigrinus) 经常被当地政府、保护团体、企业和媒体鼓励占据重要的城市空间。本文探讨了在美国马里兰州巴尔的摩市的城市环境中，鸽子和猎鹰的存在如何受到不同的重视。我研究了关于猎鹰和鸽子的故事如何在定义它们的价值方面发挥重要作用，特别是与城市作为资本主义积累场所的作用有关。巴尔的摩的具体故事将鸽子视为猎鹰的生态上重要的食物来源，并将城市鸽子数量减少的功劳归于猎鹰，这使这两种非人类物种具有彼此之间的特殊价值观。我的分析表明，通过讲故事和想象中的资本主义胜利，城市中的非人类死亡被赋予了新的价值，