Trophy Hunters & Crazy Cat Ladies: exploring cats and conservation in North America and Southern Africa through intersectionality

Abstract

What explains the silencing, dismissal, disavowal, ridicule, and stigmatizing of care for individual animals observed in conservation discourses? We examine this question using a comparative case study of feral cat management in North America and lion conservation in southern Africa. We apply intersectionality to illustrate the ways in which hierarchies of scale (individual/population), knowledge (emotion/reason), and gender (feminine/masculine) marginalize concern for individual animals, with consequences for the lives of animals and those who care for them. We explore the embodiment of these intersecting hierarchies in two contrasting, yet entangled, figures – the othered Crazy Cat Lady and the privileged Trophy Hunter – which serve to illustrate how mainstream conservation discourses position care for animals as feminine and emotional, while privileging a very different human-animal relationship based in masculine, rational concern for species. Overall, we contribute to efforts in feminist more-than-human scholarship by: extending intersectional analysis to empirical cases of animal conservation and management where it has had limited application; applying intersectionality to manifestations of social power other than categories of identity by considering gender alongside hierarchies of scale and knowledge; and, examining both othered and privileged identity formation by employing a comparative case study approach. We conclude by highlighting alternate ontologies which hold promise for fostering more equitable, less hierarchical visions of multispecies flourishing which avow care for individual animals.

Keywords:

• Animals
• conservation
• gender
• intersectionality
• knowledge
• scale

Acknowledgement

We are grateful to Alice Hovorka for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript, as well as to the three anonymous reviewers whose thoughtful engagement strengthened our discussion.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sandra G. McCubbin

Sandra McCubbin and Lauren Van Patter are PhD Candidates in the Department of Geography and Planning at Queen’s University (Kingston). Prior, they obtained MA degrees in the Department of Geography at the University of Guelph. They are members of The Lives of Animals Research Group which focuses on human-animal relations. Their research draws upon and contributes to human-environment geography and animal geography. Altogether their research on animals has included feral cats, domestic dogs, lions, and coyotes. Their aim is to highlight the circumstances and experiences of animals, as well as the broader structures and dynamics that shape their daily lives.