Bad Nature : How Rat Control Shapes Human and Nonhuman Worlds / Andrew McCumber.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

McCumber, Andrew, Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Human-animal relationships.

Rats--Control--Social aspects.

Rats.

Rats--Control--Alberta.

Rats--Control--California--Los Angeles.

Rats--Control--Galapagos Islands.

Rats--Social aspects--Alberta.

Rats--Social aspects--California--Los Angeles.

Rats--Social aspects--Galapagos Islands.

Rats--Social aspects--North America.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (224 p.) : 6 halftones, 1 tables

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, [2025]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Offers insights into the social and cultural implications of humans’ relationships with rats and the natural world. Apart from the occasional pet owner who has rats, most people regard rats as disease-carrying nocturnal pests, scurrying around dumpsters and dragging slices of pizza through New York City subways. Since rats are seemingly omnipresent in human life, why do we harbor such negative feelings about them, and why are they among the creatures most frequently targeted for systematic extermination? In Bad Nature, sociologist Andrew McCumber draws out the cultural underpinnings of rat extermination across three countries and two continents. Drawing from ethnographic, interview, and textual data from the frigid prairie of Alberta, Canada; the heart of downtown Los Angeles, California; and the iconic Galápagos Islands of Ecuador, McCumber studies how humans have sought to suppress and exterminate rat populations in a variety of environmental, social, and political situations. He shows how, in these disparate locations, rat control is a social practice that draws and clarifies the spatial and symbolic boundaries between “good” and “bad” forms of nature. Rats are near the bottom of a symbolic hierarchy of species that places human life at the top, companion animals and majestic wildlife just below them, and the “invasive species” that call for systematic extermination at the very bottom. This hierarchy of living things that places rats at the bottom, McCumber argues, mirrors human systems of social inequalities and power dynamics. Both original and engaging, Bad Nature urges readers to consider, when charting a just and sustainable future, where will the rats be placed in the worlds we envision?

Contents:

Frontmatter

CONTENTS

1 Introduction

PART I ANIMALS IN BOUNDARY WORK

PART II THE BORDERS OF URBAN NATURE

PART III ECOLOGIES OF MEANING

Acknowledgment

Appendix A: Regression Results Table

Appendix B: Natural Language Processing

Reference

Index

Notes:

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 20. Mar 2025)

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9780226838977

0226838978

OCLC:

1510038985