SCOTTISH GEOGRAPHICAL JOURNAL

Amphibious ethics and speculative immersions: laboratory aquariums as a site for developing a more inclusive animal geography
Greenhough B, Roe E and Message R
Human capacity to sense and respond to the suffering of non-human animals is key to animal care and welfare. Intuitively these modes of relating seem best suited to interactions between humans and warm-blooded mammals who share human-like facial features and characteristics. Animal geographers and those working in animal welfare have noted the challenges that humans face in learning to care about fishes, and how this leads to welfare guidelines and regulations which are poorly suited to aquatic species. This paper draws on interviews with laboratory aquarists and biomedical researchers to explore how they have learnt to sense and respond to the needs of fishes in the laboratory. We offer two key observations. Firstly, despite significant bodily differences, humans find ways to empathise with fishes. Secondly, whilst observations of bodies and behaviours predominate in laboratory mammal welfare assessments, when working with fishes water quality serves as an important proxy for species health. We conclude that the laboratory aquarium signifies methodological and conceptual limits in contemporary animal geographies. We further argue that these barriers should be understood as cultural, and - as we demonstrate - that there is consequently scope and capacity to reach beyond them by engaging in amphibious ethics and speculative immersions.
Environmental, social and economic perceptions of local food production: a case study of Aberdeenshire farmers' markets
Wardle J, Sorathia A, Smith P and Feliciano D
Sustainable food systems are an important aspect of curbing the impacts of climate change and meeting targets of global food security. It is increasingly recognised that a wider suite of indicators is required to assess sustainability beyond the traditional environmental factors. This study focuses on Aberdeenshire, an atypical area of the UK where soils, climate and topography are not conducive to diverse or large-scale fruit and vegetable production, which in other areas, are a dominant feature of farmers' markets. Nevertheless, Aberdeenshire needs economic diversification to offset some of the impacts of the decline in the oil and gas industry. Face-to-face questionnaires were conducted across Aberdeenshire farmers' markets in summer 2022 to assess buyer and seller perceptions of the environmental, social and economic benefits of local food products. There was a positive attitude to local products with the majority of buyers perceiving the quality, nutrition, organic status and use of sustainable farming practices to be high. Conversely, the main products bought, baked goods and meat, are associated with negative impacts on the environment and/or human health. We discuss why, despite these shortfalls, farmers' markets provide a valuable opportunity to distribute and promote high quality wares to support the local economy.
Citational politics in and through animal geographies: interrogating onto-epistemological diversity
Kathryn , Krithika and Rosemary
This paper contributes to geographic literature on the effects of inequity in citational practice and politics, focusing in particular on onto-epistemological diversity (or lack thereof) in animal geographies' citational structures. Through a bibliometric analysis of journal articles in Anglophone animal geographies (as a subdiscipline of human geography), we examine the intersections between citational trends, the contours of knowledge in the field and everyday academic lives. Our goal in this paper is to highlight some of the ways in which citational inequities are fueled. Specifically, our analysis shows that within Anglophone animal geographies, citational esteem can accrue through institutional networks and shared onto-epistemologies, which often go along with ethical and political orientations that refrain from explicitly contesting the status-quo of anthropocentrism. We ground our analysis with a reflective discussion of everyday academic practice to understand the multi-scalar dynamics and implications of citational politics and prompt heightened reflexivity among geographers concerning how animal and other geographies are constructed and reproduced - and how these reproductions can be contested.
Making a mark on the farm: the marks and traces of farm animals and infectious diseases in northern England
Mahon N, Finan S, Holloway L, Clark B and Proctor A
Farmed animals are expected to move through farmed spaces in certain ways to maximise their productivity. These spaces are also designed to limit the movement of disease-causing organisms. However, both types of lifeforms do not always move in expected ways. We focus on the mark-making of these organisms to explore: 1) the evidence of their movements through farm spaces; and 2) the effects of these movements on managing farm animal disease. We explore these questions via social-scientific and artistic practices. The social science draws on in-depth interviews with UK cattle and sheep farmers, and farm advisors. The artistic component draws on work conducted by an 'artist in residence' engaging with farm animals and farmer-livestock relationships. Farm animals and infectious micro-organisms were found to move in different ways and create different marks and traces across farms, bodies, and how diseases were managed. These lifeforms often frustrated biosecurity practices of exclusion and enclosure and existed on a spectrum of disease risk. Human actors needed to learn to become attuned to lifeform movements in order to enact disease management. We conclude by suggesting a continued focus in future social-scientific research on how the 'sub-animal body' contributes to the enacting of farm disease management.