Animals and law in the American city

We must distinguish three kinds of animals. First, individuated animals, family pets, sentimental, Oedipal animals each with its own petty history, “my” cat, “my” dog. These animals invite us to regress, draw us into a narcissistic contemplation, and they are the only kind of animal psychoanalysis understands, the better to discover a daddy, a mommy, a little brother behind them.;.;. And then there is a second kind: animals with characteristics or attributes, genus, classification, or State animals, animals as they are treated in the great divine myths.;.;. Finally, there are more demonic animals, pack or affect animals that form a multiplicity, a becoming, a population, a tale. Modern western cities are designed by humans and with humans in mind; indeed, nonhuman animals are conceived by many urban dwellers as being “out of place.” However, a closer look at the contemporary city proves otherwise. Humans are not the majority of the city’s members of Kingdom Animalia. In fact, bees, pigeons, rats, bats, rabbits, ants, wasps, dogs, cats, horses, chickens, bedbugs, and lice far outnumber humans. This nonhuman animal population constitutes what has been referred to in animal studies literature as a “shadow population” or a “subaltern animal town.” Whereas a large and growing literature is dedicated to studying human populations in the city, not much has been written about nonhuman animals in this space. This chapter will explore the presence of nonhuman animals in the American city through a legal lens. In particular, it will address these largely overlooked questions: On the one hand, how are animals constructed by law and how does this construction translate into the animal’s material existence in American cities? And on the other hand, how do humans and animals work in and around the classifications constituted by animal laws? I shall argue that alongside law’s attempt to classify animals, a considerable administrative effort goes into keeping animals confined within their particular classifications.