Author: James Gondwe (School of Architecture and Planning, University of the Witwatersrand)

Introduction

Livestock were there at the ECAS 2023 Conference which took place from 31st May to 3rd June 2023. They were neither physically plodding their hooves on the corridors of the University of Cologne nor mooing in conference rooms. I represented their plight of sidelined to the margins of the Southern urbanism by presenting a paper on various nuances of animal geographies of livestock in African cities and towns. My topic of presentation was ‘Situating animal geographies of livestock in African cities: Troubling the limits.’ In the preamble of my presentation, I showed the missing links between the Southern and animal turns. Although both conceptualise the shift of boundaries of narratives and discourses that shape urban tudies and animal geography, there is a limited space of the ‘animal turn’ in Southern urbanism. Southern urbanism, though it is a vibrant academic space for scholars who are discontented by the mainstream urban theory which do not reflect the realities of the cities in the global South, its approach to the realities of urban Africa is anthropocentric. That urban Africa which includes world cities like Cape Town are ‘livestocking’ (see figure 1) remains an imperceptible reality that scholars who write from Southern perspective have underrepresented in their research activities. In my presentation I first cited reasons why Southern scholars have sidelined animal geographies to the edges of Southern urbanism and then proposed solutions to the academic impasse.

Figure 1: Cattle in Karonga Town, Malawi (Photo: James Gondwe)

Reasons for the imperceptible realities of livestock geographies in the Southern urbanism

Scholars who write from the Southern perspective are more engrossed in human agency than in subjectivities of livestock, yet scholarly reports show that the practice of livestock rearing in urban Africa is becoming a conspicuous landscape. A deep Southern scholarship on the circumstances and experiences of the urban poor at the expense of livestock agency in African cities and towns seem to indicate that urban Africa is space for human habitation only. Development theory and practice in urban Africa is dominated by themes that focus on how to reverse the socio-economic impact of colonialism. Subjectivities of livestock which are also migrating and living in African cities and towns remain a hidden reality. Seen in this, the Southern theory is as anthropocentric as the mainstream urban theory which assumes that cities and towns are spaces for human urban dwellers only. Livestock are perceived as adjuncts for human development.

There is also epistemic dependence on the global North for animal geographies. Although there is an emerging scholarship on livestock geographies focusing on urban Africa, leading scholars come from universities and research institutions from the global North. Following that, worldviews of animal geographies are pervading cities of the global South including African cities. The globalisation of animal geography scholarship through scholarly outputs from global North based scholars imply that the local realities of livestock animals are being curtailed by the epistemic dependence from the universities based in the global North. While it is noted that ~~like other disciplines~~, animal geography originated in the global North, its representation of animal geographies of the global South which include African cities is limited because human-animal relations are perceived differently. On one hand animal welfare is practiced in most African countries and on the other hand animal rights are observed in the global North.

The extermination of livestock in Western cities in the 1800s due to moral and hygienic narratives was relayed to African cities during the colonial period. Municipalities in urban Africa have replicated the 1800s urban planning mood by developing by-laws that regulate the practice of animal husbandry in African cities and towns. In this regard, most scholars who write from the Southern position have neglected writing about livestock because their presence in African cities and towns is not recorded by annals of the municipalities. Their absence from the annals of municipalities imply that they are just any other raw material that should be used for urban development.

Possibilities of the Southern turn to ‘turn’ into the ‘animal turn.’

In this section of my presentation, I attempted to provide solutions to the neglected livestock subjectivities in African cities and towns.

One of the solutions of breaking epistemic dependence and superiority from the global North is to deliberately set up city labs that focus on human-animal relations in universities based in African countries. Universities such University of Cape Town (UCT)and University of Witwatersrand established research labs which have a strong focus towards the material and imagined geographies of African cities and towns. The African Centre for Cities which is hosted by UCT focuses on the analytics of African cities, digging into realties of their post-colonial geographies. However, the centre’s approach to studying African cities is anthropocentric, yet it is hoisted in a transspecies world city. Seen in this, there is need to employ the posthuman thought in analysing African cities because most of them are displaying multispecies urban spaces. Livestock are post-colonial animals whose welfare can be improved by studying their space and place in African cities.

A deliberate focus on research methods that decenter the human voice and bring out the imperceptible circumstances and experiences of livestock will increase research outputs on animals’ geographies. One of the reasons why research outputs on ‘beastly urbanisation’(how urban animals experience the ‘urban’) are limited is traditional methods of research cannot be used to collect data from animal agency. Animals do not speak the language we understand and write, therefore, cannot participate in interviews, focus group discussion and other human centric methods. Thus, universities in Africa should either make use of already developed more than human research methods or develop new frontiers of research methods that capture the subjectivities of livestock. In fact, universities which have animal studies in their curricula can easily adapt some already existing methods to collect data from the lived experiences of livestock animals.

Conclusion

The future of African cities as envisaged by the ‘Urban 16 Panel ‘African urban futures and positionalities towards global urban policies’ in which I was given a slot to present the findings of my study which, I have summarised in this blog, is shaped by multispecies entanglements. Urban animals, including livestock are sharing spaces with people, foraging on human based food stuffs, and also fabricating the urban form and the functionality of African cities in various ways and forms. Following that, the ‘animal turn’ should be embedded into the Southern turn as a way of capturing the lived experiences of livestock in African cities. Scholars who are researching and writing from a southern perspective should be aware that much as they are preoccupied by solving problems which the urban poor are experiencing in post-colonial African cities, livestock are also post-colonial animals whose lived experiences are worthy researching and writing about. Animal welfare can be improved if we understand their contribution to the development of African cities beyond the label of innate objects of development. The future of African cities is shaped by the complexity of human-livestock relations which co-produce the urban form and its functionality.

Figure2 : James Gondwe presenting at ECAS (Photo: Michelle Tatenda Sonono)