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Monkey business: human-animal conflicts in urban SingaporeJun-Han Yeoa; Harvey Neob
a Raffles Girls School, Singapore b Department of Geography, National University of Singapore,Singapore
Online publication date: 17 September 2010
To cite this Article Yeo, Jun-Han and Neo, Harvey(2010) 'Monkey business: human-animal conflicts in urban Singapore',Social & Cultural Geography, 11: 7, 681 — 699To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/14649365.2010.508565URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2010.508565
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Monkey business: human–animal conflicts in urbanSingapore
Jun-Han Yeo1 & Harvey Neo21Raffles Girls School, 20 Anderson Road, 259978, Singapore and 2Department of Geography,
National University of Singapore, 1 Arts Link, 117570, Singapore, [email protected]
Ongoing human–long-tailed macaque (Macaca fascicularis) conflicts in Bukit TimahNature Reserve, Singapore, have seen native macaques significantly affected, asresidential development encroaches into animals’ habitat, destroying important wildlifecorridors. The search for a more humane treatment of these transgressive animals can beseen as an attempt to extend and include non-human animals within humanistic notionsof ethics and care, in the process destabilizing the assumed divide between human/animal.Yet, a feasible solution is difficult to reach as National Parks Board (NParks), the stateagency overseeing the conservation of reserves and wildlife, has to negotiate constantlybetween their goal of maintaining biodiversity and appeasing the complaining residents.The paper seek to understand urban–wilderness conflicts between human–macaque,showing that the divide between tamed/wild is multi-sited, ambiguous and constantlyshifting. In this regard, we are especially interested in the role of intermediaries ininitiating actions to ‘make discursive as well as material space’ for macaques in thereserve. Intermediaries, here referring to NParks and animal activists, are actors who donot reside near the reserve thus having no frequent encounters with wildlife, yet areenrolled as mitigators during instances of human–animal conflicts.
Key words: animal geography, environmental politics, transgression, borderlands,urbanization, intermediaries.
Introduction
‘New’ animal geography emerged during the
mid-1990s, interrogating the anthropocentr-
ism of social theory by ‘bringing the animals
back in’ (Wolch and Emel 1995) and examin-
ing the material welfare and cultural signifi-
cance of nonhuman animals within the
geographies of social life. The post-structural
turn in geography in the 1980s, together with
rising environmental movements challenging
speciesism, led the newly emerging animal
geographers to rethink the concept of sub-
jectivity and disrupt the assumed dichotomy
between human/animal (Wolch and Emel
1998). Animals are reconceptualized as beings
possessing subjectivity, agency and intention-
ality, active in configuring both the environ-
ment they inhabit and their interactions with
people. AlthoughWilbert (2000) questions the
Social & Cultural Geography, Vol. 11, No. 7, November 2010
ISSN 1464-9365 print/ISSN 1470-1197 online/10/070681-19 q 2010 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/14649365.2010.508565
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necessity of such conceptualizations in
acknowledging animals’ agency, and the
effectiveness of such exercises in uncovering
animals’ ‘beastliness’ and the (ineluctable?)
risk of anthropomorphism (see also Johnston
2008); animals, nevertheless, began to figure
critically in the construction of human
identities and formation of places and
landscapes.
This paper studies the ongoing human–
long-tailed macaque (Macaca fascicularis;
Figure 1) conflicts in Bukit Timah Nature
Reserve (BTNR), Singapore. Native macaques
are significantly affected, as residential devel-
opment encroaches into animals’ habitat,
destroying important wildlife corridors, and
in the process, discursively rewriting the
meaning of the landscape (Wolch 2002). In
2007, 206 macaques were caught and culled,
double the figure of ninety-three in 2004 (The
Straits Times 2008b). Culling signifies the
shifting of spatial relations between human
and animals, where wildlife are rendered ‘out-
of-place’ as spaces become urbanized.
BTNR is an example of what Wolch, Emel
and Wilbert (2003: 188) termed ‘“border-
land” communities’ where humans and wild
animals share spaces. Material and metapho-
rical boundaries are placed to demarcate
urban spaces as domains of human dom-
inance. Such boundaries are highly permeable
and susceptible to animal transgressions.
Transgression, the physical and ‘metaphorical
crossing of social boundaries (norms, conven-
tions, and expectations)’ (Philo 1995: 656),
blurs human/animal divide, producing anxiety
that legitimizes the removal of the transgressor
for the perceived order to be restored.
However, the ambiguity of borderland,
namely the trans-species sharing of spaces,
makes animal culling a morally-charged issue
(Gullo, Lassiter and Wolch 1998; Proctor
1998). The search for a more humane
treatment of these transgressive animals can
be seen as an attempt to extend and include
nonhuman animals within humanistic notions
of ethics and care, in the process, destabilizing
the assumed divide between human/animal.
Yet, a feasible solution is difficult to reach as
National Parks Board (NParks), the state
agency overseeing the conservation of reserves
and wildlife, has to constantly negotiate
between their goal of maintaining biodiversity
and appeasing the complaining residents.
The paper seeks to understand urban–
wilderness conflicts between human–macaque
within BTNR, showing that the divide
between tamed/wild is multi-sited, ambiguous
and constantly shifting. In this regard, we are
especially interested in the role of intermedi-
aries in initiating actions to ‘make discursive
Figure 1 Long-tailed macaque. Authors’ own
photograph.
682 Jun-Han Yeo & Harvey Neo
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as well as material space’ (Wolch 2002: 736)
for macaques in the reserve. Intermediaries,
here referring to NParks and animal activists,
are actors who do not reside near the reserve
thus having no frequent encounters with
wildlife, yet are enrolled as mitigators during
instances of human–animal conflicts. We will
also elaborate on a ‘dwelt perspective’ to
interrogate the role played by the intermedi-
aries in the management of animal–human
conflicts; this is a research lacuna that we seek
to contribute to.
Following this introduction, we will give an
overview of work within animal geographies
that recognizes the discursive role of animals
in the social construction of places and
landscapes, followed by a suggested concep-
tual framework and a brief note on method-
ologies. In the substantive empirical section,
we first discuss BTNR residents’ attitudes and
behaviors towards wild macaques, to reveal
the socio-spatial implications for macaques as
spaces become urbanized. We then examine
the discourses and agencies of intermediaries,
specifically scrutinizing the mitigating role of
NParks. NParks’ positionality within this
conflict is, we will show through the issue of
culling, constantly shifting. As conflicts occur
within ambiguous trans-species borderlands,
mitigation process can never be assumed as
objective, as any solution reached is always
situational and politicized.
Animal geographies: politics and repre-sentations
Animal geographers have shown how humans’
interpretation of, and relations with animals
inevitably have their own spatial implications.
Human discourses about animals shape
their attitude and socio-spatial practices
towards them, in which different species are
in-/excluded in different spaces (Philo 1995:
664). Philo (1995) shows how medical, moral
and sanitary discourses had been mobilized
to render behavior of livestock animals as
disruptive and polluting to civility and order
of nineteenth-century Smithfield, London,
thus constituting livestock, together with
meat markets and slaughterhouses, as ‘out-
of-place’. Howell (2000) shows how dog-
stealing in the Victorian age undermined the
gendered, bourgeois ideology of domesticity,
thus legitimizing the domestication and
confinement of both the ‘feminized’ lap dogs
and their virtuous women keepers within
the security of the household. Michel (1998)
argues that the conservation/rehabilitation of
endangering golden eagles and their habitat by
grassroots communities produce politicized,
trans-species acts of care that position eagles
as important actors in the making of the
southern California landscape.
Domesticated animals, like livestock, are
crucial in the imaginative geography of
rurality. They embody the values of rurality,
and are symbols of rural ways of life and
livelihood. In their study of the changing
geography of livestock distribution in the
British countryside, Yarwood and Evans move
beyond economistic reasoning, and draw a
relationship between ‘breeds, place and cul-
ture’ (2000: 100) to argue that certain rare
place-specific breeds are preserved to not only
protect local ecology and promote agrotour-
ism, but also to (re)constitute local identity
through the animal’s historical and cultural
links with the landscape. Similarly, Hovorka
(2008) also argues that chickens are influential
actors in determining the ‘form, function and
dynamics’ of Greater Gaborone, Botswana,
through their important socio-economic trans-
species relationships with humans.
Despite the absence of animals’ physical
participations in political processes, their
Monkey business 683
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representations are still mobilized in such
contestations (Woods 1998, 2000). Woods
(1998) shows how representations of deer are
variedly mobilized by different politically-
motivated actors to legitimize their claims in
the staghunting debates. Anti-hunting cam-
paigners utilize emotive images to portray deer
as defenseless animals suffering from pain and
cruelty in the hunt; whereas hunt supporters
use scientific discourses to affirm hunting as
‘natural’ and necessary in controlling deer
population. Similarly, during the ‘BSE crisis’,
cattle were imbued with monetary and
cultural values by farmers and agricultural
lobbyists in their negotiations for compen-
sation over the cattle culled, and also
scientifically represented by British govern-
ment to ‘establish “facts” about the disease
and hence make recommendations about its
control’ (Woods 1998: 1229). As livestock are
central to meanings of rurality, the crisis also
represented rural alternatively as a diseased
space, overturning the popular purity imagery
of the countryside.
These examples illustrate that the represen-
tations of animals are always political; biased
and partial, reflecting solely the interests of
humans in their political debates. Animals are
enrolled and mobilized in often contradictory
‘representations’, with their ‘beastly’ presences
purposefully erased (Marvin 2001; Woods
2000).
Hence, when animal behaviors contradict
the way humans perceive or ‘represent’ them,
or when they transgress those boundaries
humans imaginatively scripted them into,
conflict arises. Jerolmack (2008) interrogates
the spatial-cultural logic of the metaphor ‘rats
with wings’ that represents pigeons as nui-
sance animals and vectors of diseases, hence
‘out-of-place’ in the modern city. The meta-
phorical association with rats, popularly
perceived as filthy and disease-ridden, creates
a moral baggage and deviant label for the
pigeons that legitimizes their extermination.
However, pigeons’ capacity for flight makes
them ‘effective transgressor(s)’ (Jerolmack
2008: 89), that continuously blurs the ideo-
logical spatial ordering between nature/culture
in the city.
Western suburbs are examples of urban–
wilderness border zones, where urban sprawl
encroaching into animal habitats resulted in
increased interactions and conflicts between
humans and animals.1 Baron (2004) provides
a chronological documentation of how public
debate and conflict in issues, like lawsuits over
wildlife-related injuries, hunting and extermi-
nation policies, were raised as wild cougars
return to their habitat of Boulder, Colorado.
Similarly Gullo, Lassiter and Wolch (1998)
account for how people’s social construction
of cougars and their characters shifted and
became polarized over time as cougar encoun-
ters increased in Orange County, California.
With the reinforcing role of media coverage,
representations of cougars as respected charis-
matic symbols of wilderness in the mid-1980s
were displaced gradually by constructions of
them as cold-blooded ‘killing machines’ in the
1990s with heightening incidences of cougar-
induced injuries. The falling moral status of
the cougars left an opening for negotiating the
reinstating of trophy hunting.
Considering intermediaries
What is largely missing in the literature is the
examination of the role of intermediaries, like
wildland management agencies. Although
Gullo, Lassiter and Wolch (1998) did
acknowledge the role of such agencies in
balancing multiple contradictory roles of
realizing bioconservation goals, ensuring pub-
lic safety and mitigating political pressures,
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they did not further interrogate how such
negotiations are made and how decisions are
derived. They also fail to question whether
intermediaries’ discourses of wildlife shift in
times of conflict mitigation. Intermediaries
occupy a unique space in borderland debate.
Unlike residents who hold particular ‘dwelt
perspectives’, they have less daily contact with
animals, but are nevertheless enrolled to
resolve human–animal conflicts, often in an
assumed objectivity and professionalism. It is
also important to consider whether interme-
diaries are involved in implementing educa-
tional/outreach programs (Michel 1998) to
create a ‘zoopolis’ (Wolch 1998), where
networks of care and coexistence between
animals and humans could be fostered.
The media also constitutes another form of
intermediary, as it significantly influences
people’s knowledge of, perceptions and beha-
viors towards an issue. In the cougar
controversy, Gullo, Lassiter and Wolch
(1998) have shown how media is influential
in perpetuating negative images and ideas
about cougars, which then shaped and
reinforced the exclusionary attitude and
behavior humans have towards them. Inci-
dents of macaque transgressions and attacks
not only heightened media coverage of the
macaque issue, but also influenced the very
nature of the issue, in turn, shaping the ways
macaques are discursively represented and
understood. Media discourses reflecting the
perspective of those affected by ‘problem’
animals often seek to order and consolidate
the spatialities of, and boundaries between
humans and animals, by portraying wildlife
presence in residential/urban spaces as dis-
ruptive and dangerous. It is crucial to examine
how wildlife control agents perceive, and react
towards such discourses. Such discourses are
often mobilized to pressure wildlife control
agents into executing drastic actions like
culling, which are of anthropocentric interests.
The liminality of borderland, and thus well-
being of wildlife, can only be maintained if
such sites are firmly established as places
where wildlife ought to belong.
Dwelt perspective: living and trans-speciesco-relationality
For those living within the borderlands, their
understandings of the macaque issue are also
partially influenced by narratives and hearsays
of others’ experiences and encounters with
macaques. Most importantly, individual resi-
dent’s everyday practices and experiences
affect the ways they come to understand the
macaques; experiences which intermediaries
arguably lack. It is crucial to consider how
borderland residents relate to their immediate
environment and question if the continual
cohabitation with their nonhuman neighbors
has changed the ways these trans-species
relationships are formed and understood.
Johnston’s (2008) recent proposal for a
‘dwelt animal geography’, which is theoreti-
cally informed by Ingold’s dwelling perspec-
tive, is useful in understanding such everyday
trans-species relationships. Taking life as
constituted in process; emerging from the
practical engagements between individual
beings (humans, nonhuman animals and
inorganic entities), the landscape and com-
ponents within the immediate environment,
Ingold theorizes that how beings come to
comprehend the world is thus always through
an ongoing holistic and situated process, that
is based on the active engagement of the body
as a complete organism (Johnston 2008: 641).
Knowledge is gained through ‘engagement,
rather than discovery or construction’ (John-
ston 2008: 641), where all body parts, cells
and organs co-exist, without a part being
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privileged over another. Ingold’s dwelling
perspective seeks to disrupt those Cartesian
binaries like culture/nature, mind/body, and
illustrates the immanent, ‘messy’ entangle-
ments that constitute the life of a dwelling
subject (Johnston 2008).
In essence, Ingold urges scholars to be
sensitive to those embodied practices and
bodily sensations which are situated, ephem-
eral effects emerging from the immediate co-
relations and (emotional) entanglements
between entities within the relational environ-
ments. Ingold does not seek to undermine
the privileged position of the cognitive
and the representational logic, but to highlight
the importance of those other unspoken, pre-
cognitive, and intuitive communicative regis-
ters of the body like smell, sound, touch and
affect, that are equally capable of forming new
relations and understandings between bodies.
Johnston (2008) termed these as ‘aesthetic
knowledge’, those relational or shared under-
standings developed through ‘daily experi-
ence, learned practices and shared events’
(Johnston 2008: 643) between human and
nonhuman bodies. Similar to current develop-
ment within nonrepresentational theory
(Thrift 2008), the dwelt animal geography
also seeks to reconfigure what constitutes
knowledge by being attuned to the poetics of
everyday life; remaining open to those
situated, intuitive and spontaneous multi-
sensual experiences and practices that could
offer alternative interpretations to an event.
Johnston (2008: 643) argues that attention
to bodily engagement and non- or pre-
linguistic forms of communication could
enable a more ‘responsible and informed
anthropomorphism that might speak to a
more intuitive animal ethics’. Like hunters and
herdsmen, borderland residents’ day-to-day
living inevitably involves intimate encounters
with nonhuman animals, which require
residents to engage and act intuitively with
the immediacy of the moment. Instances of
cross-species encounters allows for new
embodied practices to emerge, which are
experimental and pregnant with creativity
and possibility, potentially opening up new
forms of relations. Familiarity and trust could
develop over time, thus enabling the develop-
ment of a responsible anthropomorphism,
based not on any forms of ‘abstract philoso-
phical argument, but on (our) actual relation-
ships, (our) day-to-day living’ (Johnston 2008:
646) with the animals. Mutual empathy, based
aesthetically on such situated, sensuous
geography of dwelling, can be nurtured and
in turn create new spaces where animals can
be included and continue to co-exist alongside
the human inhabitants. Yet, despite such
possibilities, as the study suggests, it is just as
likely that dwelling amongst the animals can
sustain and/or aggravate negative human–
animal relationships.
Reanimating geography
Urbanization involves a denaturalization of
the environment, producing deleterious
environmental impacts that affect the exist-
ence of wildlife. Yet, contemporary urban
theory is often anthropocentric, ignoring the
subjectivity and agency of nonhuman animals.
In response, Wolch (2002: 721–735) argues
for a reanimated urban theory, the anima
urbis, ‘the breath, life, soul and spirit of the
city . . . embodied in its animal as well as
human life forms’, which considers the
‘political ecology of people and animals in
the city’ and recognizes the agency, as well as
both utilitarian and symbolic values of
animals in constituting city life.
Wolch’s anima urbis (2002) is especially
useful in studying the process of place-making
686 Jun-Han Yeo & Harvey Neo
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in borderland communities. ‘Borderland’ is an
effective metaphor that captures the blurring
of boundaries between wild/urban, to consti-
tute a hybridized spatial context that is neither
fully domesticated nor wild, belonging neither
wholly to humans nor animals. Regular
contacts with animals change human attitudes
and socio-spatial practices towards them over
time, evident in the case of cougar encounters
in USA (Baron 2004; Gullo, Lassiter and
Wolch 1998). Similarly, residential spaces
situated close to BTNR also produce such
complex borderland human–animal relations,
where Wolch’s (2002) anima urbis is useful
in asking what urbanization means to the
borderland wildlife and how this in turn
shapes humans’ attitudes and practices
towards them.
‘Dirt’ and exclusionary geographies
Instances of human–animal conflict presup-
pose the omnipresence of a socio-spatial
ordering that seeks to demarcate and dis-
tinguish boundaries between humans and
animals. Conflict occurs when transgression
takes place and disrupts such orderings. What
constitutes a ‘transgression’ is based on
context-specific, discursive constructions that
distinguish between ‘purity’ and ‘defilement’.
Transgression blurs such distinction, creating
‘liminal zones or spaces of ambiguity and
discontinuity’ (Sibley 1995: 33) that produce
anxiety. Reducing anxiety requires the prompt
removal of the ‘impurity’ so that the ‘purity’ of
space, thus spatial order, could be maintained.
Mary Douglas (1966: 12) argues that what
is ‘dirt’ is very dependent on space, as ‘(t)here
is no such thing as absolute dirt. It exists in the
eye of the beholder’. Thus, ‘dirt as a matter out
of place . . . implies two conditions: a set of
ordered relations and a contravention of that
order’ (Douglas 1966: 35). In that sense, the
act of killing/culling to remove ‘dirt’ and
re-establish the ‘purity’ of space (both of
which are socially constructed) is self-serving
and morally suspect. Yet, animals (like the
macaques in this paper) are often ordered and
inscribed with certain meanings within the
wider spatial-cultural context, which renders
them ‘out of place’ should they transgress into
territories where they (allegedly) do not
belong. Animals appearing within human
home spaces, for example, can trigger an
anxiety, which in turn legitimizes their
persecution, enabling the perceived spatial
order between home and wilderness to be re-
affirmed and re-established.
Douglas’s thesis was incorporated into
David Sibley’s (1995) Geographies of Exclu-
sion. Using psychoanalytical Object Relations
Theory to establish the notion of boundaries
between Self and ‘Other’, Sibley (1995)
provides a culturalist account of why some
social groups, and spaces they inhabit, are
stigmatized. ‘Space is implicated in many cases
of social exclusion’; a plethora of imaginative
geographies in different spatial and temporal
contexts exists where minorities and Others
(those perceived as threatening and polluting
to dominant society) are cast into ‘elsewhere’
(Sibley 1995: 46–49). ‘Elsewhere’ refers not
just to stigmatized peripheral spaces like gypsy
camps, but also ‘nowhere’—the ‘no-space’ of
events like massacres and genocides. Sibley
(1995: 72) also argues that an understanding
of exclusion requires a contextualized, ‘cul-
tural reading of space . . . which emphasizes
the rituals of spatial organization’, referring to
the policing and purifying of space that chimes
with Douglas’s idea of removing dirt. It is thus
important to analyze those underlying exclu-
sionary discourses that seek to legitimize
purification actions.
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Similar to marginalized social groups like
gypsies (Sibley 1995), animals can also be
conceived ‘as a social group possessing both
inner experiences and outer determinations’
(Philo 1995: 677, also see Tuan 1984),
continuously entangled within the power
relations and socio-spatial practices of the
wider human community. Analysis of dis-
courses about animals will reveal how
different animals are culturally defined or
interpreted and what material and symbolic
spaces are implied for them as a result (Philo
and Wilbert 2000). Companion animals like
pets are desired by their owners, but wild
animals like macaques and cougars or even
‘out-of-place’ stray animals can raise human
anxiety leading either to their spatial exclusion
or execution. It is in these ways that Johnston’s
(2008) optimism in a ‘dwelt animal geogra-
phy’ that builds positive co-relationality of
human and animals can be undermined.
Figure 2 shows the conceptual framework
for this paper. We will examine how macaques
are discursively constituted as a social
group that is implicated within the imaginative
geographies of human borderland residents,
and their related socio-spatial practices of in-
/exclusion (Philo 1995). Analyzing discourses
resonates with Wolch’s anima urbis (2002),
revealing how urbanization leads to the
construction of macaques as ‘out-of-place’,
and how humans’ behavior and attitude
changed as once distanced animals become
closer to them. Intermediaries, both state
agents and grassroots activists, also play a key
role in shaping borderland politics, invariably
affecting the existence of wildlife through their
agencies and discourses. Meanings of border-
land thus emerged and materialized out of
such processes of negotiations between these
various (predominantly human) actors. We
argue that liminality of BTNR affects not only
residents’ interpretations of macaques as
ambiguously belonging and not-belonging,
but also influences the way intermediaries
mitigate the issue. Lynn (1998: 282–284)
argues that resolving animal–human conflicts
requires what he calls, ‘geoethics’, the con-
textual understanding of human–animal
relations within their ‘geographic community’.
Since borderlands are spaces of trans-species
co-existence, the culling of macaques thus
raises important ethical debate.
Methodology
In-depth semi-structured interviews were con-
ducted with representatives from NParks, the
state agency involved in the mitigation of
borderland conflicts, and Raffles Girls School’s
(RGS) Monkey Business (MB) Group, a
student-initiated activist group that looks
specifically at the macaque issue. MB was
created by six RGS students, aged 15–16, to
fulfill the requirement of their community
management problem-solving module in the
school curriculum. The idea was conceived by
one of the members who had an experience of
macaque attack, which ended in the culling of
the ‘problem’macaque. The aim of the group is
to find measures to curb human–macaque
conflict. Topics discussed pertained to animal
ethics, conflict management (for NParks
especially), and to understand if campaigns
or legislations are implemented to sustain the
livelihood of wildlife in the borderland.
Sixteen residents living close to BTNR were
also interviewed in their homes (Figure 3), to
understand how macaques are being rep-
resented, and what human–animal spatial
orderings are hence implied. Resident respon-
dents were recruited through the snowballing
method. The residents live in either condomi-
niums or landed property, with those living in
the latter potentially having more ‘intimate’
688 Jun-Han Yeo & Harvey Neo
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contact, where they have more frequent visual
and physical contact with the macaques. For
the residents, NParks officials and RGS
students, interviews were conducted at their
homes, offices and school, respectively. Semi-
structured interview allows for opinion and
information to be elicited from a predeter-
mined way, but ‘still ensures flexibility in the
way issues are addressed by the informant’
(Dunn 2005: 80). Whilst our sympathies lie
Anima urbis
Borderland communities
The conflict between human and macaques
Exclusinary discourse
Process ofurbanization
Change inbehavior and
attitude
State andscientific
discourses
Grassrootsactivism
Intermediaries
Figure 2 Conceptual framework.
Figure 3 Map of BTNR indicating research locations. Authors’ own map.
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somewhat with the macaques, we do not have
a fixed ideological agenda and have tried
consciously to avoid influencing the opinions
of interviewees (particularly the residents)
when speaking to them. Newspaper articles
from The Straits Times, the most widely
circulated English-medium paper in Singa-
pore, and videos that touch on human–
macaque conflicts were also used in my
discussion of alternative, humane solutions
to the issue.
‘In-/excluded’: ambiguous macaquediscourses of residents
Residents reveal that they are aware of
incidents of human–macaque conflicts in
BTNR prior to staying there. Nevertheless,
interviews with the residents reveal that the
desire to be close to nature motivates them to
take up residency there. Analysis of respon-
dents’ narratives and newspaper articles show
that macaques are ambiguously constructed as
borderland/liminal creatures, simultaneously
perceived as ‘out-of-place’ and belonging in
the BTNR landscape. Table 1 shows the
various terms and phrases used by residents to
describe macaques and their behaviors. While
most of the terms are unambiguous in their
meanings and intent (in terms of whether they
are positive, negative and neutral), a few of the
terms we grouped as negative can be seen as
positive or neutral (e.g. ‘cheeky’ and ‘feisty’)
and some which we grouped as neutral can be
seen as negative (e.g. ‘territorial animals’). In
such cases, we have interpreted the context
and tone of the conversations conducted with
the residents to determine whether these terms
are used in a negative, positive or neutral
sense.
In any case, negative discourses are domi-
nant. Macaques’ ability to scavenge, trespass
houses, and snatch food from humans, have
led to their labeling as ‘thieves’, ‘aggressors’
and ‘nuisance’. Verbs like ‘plagued’ and ‘raid’
further suggest their ‘out-of-placeness’, where
their presence/behaviors are perceived to be
intrusive within urban spaces, especially when
they transgress home spaces and disrupt the
context of home as a safe, secure, autonomous
human territory. Interestingly, one does not
naturally (and cannot legitimately) call for the
killing of human intruders and scavengers,
suggesting a deep speciesism which establishes
the macaques as a ‘dangerous other’ is the key
rationale behind the extreme treatment of the
macaques favored by some residents. Indeed,
to further establish the macaques as the
‘dangerous other’, medical discourses con-
structing macaques as vectors of diseases are
also used to legitimize their exclusions and
executions. Justifications for macaques’ eradi-
cation were also gendered at times, in which
women and children were perceived to be
more vulnerable (The Straits Times 2008a)
and prone to predatory attacks of macaques:
They [the macaques] can judge and tend to attack
women. (Chris, condominium resident)
Indeed, media reporting of human–maca-
que conflicts heightened in early 2008,
following a somewhat sensationalized report
of the harassment of a pregnant woman and
her toddler by a troop of fifteen macaques
(The Straits Times 2007). Anxiety over
property damage, safety and health concerns,
as induced by transgressions, undermine the
apparent human ideals of home space, thus
legitimizing the control/purification of space
to restore and reaffirm the assumed ideological
order between home/‘wild’. Yet, such per-
ceived spatial order is multi-porous and
shifting, often extending beyond home spaces.
Condominium residents mention that the mere
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sightings of macaques near the swimming pool
or at public spaces outside the condominium
compound could induce them to chase them
away, to re-establish such spaces as ‘human
territory’ (Chris).
Discourses have its implicit spatialities.
Being represented as ‘out-of-place’ ‘here’,
macaques are then imaginatively zoned ‘else-
where’, where they ought to belong. For some,
this ‘elsewhere’ refers to ‘nowhere’, implying
that nuisance macaques ‘should be culled’
(The Straits Times 2008c). Others feel that
macaques should be relocated to some
peripheral spaces like an uninhabited island.
Despite these exclusionary narratives, BTNR
is still ambivalently recognized as macaques’
habitat. Yet, macaques are discursively
bounded within the reserve and are faulted
for their movement beyond:
They [macaques] should stay as a group within the
reserve . . . It is nuisance when they enter our
compound to scavenge and leave footprints or feces
on the car and walls. (Chris)
Furthermore, humans expect macaques to
behave and act in certain ways. Behaviors that
contradict human expectations and represen-
tations are rendered problematic:
Plucking fruits from trees is normal monkey
behavior, but boldly entering houses to steal food
and reacting aggressively are abnormal behaviors.
(Cindy, landed property resident)
Respondents attribute such ‘abnormal
aggression’ as a result of human’s indiscrimi-
nate, year-round, feeding of the macaques,
which changes their behavior, conditioning
them to be reliant on humans for food. Being
habituated to humans for food makes them
bolder, more demanding and aggressive when
food is found. To macaques, the presence of
humans equates to the availability of food,
thus enticing them to move towards the forest
fringe to forage.
Macaques’ aggression is also perceived as an
innate quality that differentiates wild animals
from humans. Macaques are being ‘Othered’
in relation to the human ‘Self’ on the criterion
of their inherent beastliness. This difference is
Table 1 Terms and phrases used by residents to describe macaque character/behavior
Negative terms/phrases Positive terms/phrases Neutral terms/phrases
† Can spread deadly disease† Behaving aggressively
† Joys and intricacies of thelong-tailed macaques’ behavior
† Animal† Primate
† Monkey mischief, cheeky † Dewy-eyed baby monkey † Monkeys
† Nuisance wildlife
† Monkey mayhem
† Most endearing and human-like native
species
† Wild animals
† Territorial animals† Plagued by moneys stealing food
† Repeat runways from troop/outcast pack
† Part of the heritage of
Singapore
† Blithely entered homes and helped
themselves to food† Bad-mannered, forward
† Indigenous of reserve
† Very appealing and their looksmelt everyone’s hearts
† Raid homes † Unique feature of the park
† Feisty † Highly intelligent animals
† Scavengers† Harassing residents
† Brazen and bold monkeys
† Thieves, vandals, aggressors
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used to legitimize culling, often in the interest
of human safety even though it is widely
recognized that humans must also be held
responsible for causing macaques’ ‘abnormal
aggression’. Such ambiguity is evident when
Andrew, a condominium resident, discussed
culling as a solution:
Culling is important in controlling their population.
Macaques are sometimes responsible for their
behavior . . . you know, it is necessary to cull
those aggressive ones . . . but then again I guess the
only solution is that humans must change and adapt
to nature, having heavier punishment for those
monkey feeders.
Rationalizations neutralize the sense of guilt
(or ambivalence) associated with eradicating
macaques (Elder, Wolch and Emel 1998). In
retrospect, respondents often feel that culling
is too harsh and morally wrong, since
macaques are free-roaming animals that
belong to the reserve. Additionally, respon-
dents were often sympathetic with macaques’
behavior and use ‘human-like’ reasoning to
make sense of macaques’ aggressiveness:
Edward: They are like humans; some will just run
when you chased them away but some will be
aggressiveandbare their teeth . . . likea signofattack.
Researcher: But, from what I gather from
primatologists, this could mean a sign of fear . . .
Edward: Maybe, just like humans I suppose, they
could attack out of fear to protect themselves.
They [adult monkeys] are desperate to save their
young, just like how humans will react when their
young are trapped or missing. (Ann, member of MB,
when discussing the usage of monkey traps as a
solution)
Borderlands are in-between, hybrid spaces
where humans–animals co-habit. The choice
to reside within such liminal spaces requires
humans to adjust their living practices, or
adapt to the macaques’ presence to prevent
conflict with them. Structural borders like
walls, roofs and gates are highly porous in
borderlands, as macaques can still enter
houses through ‘ventilation slats above win-
dows or through roof eaves’ (The Straits Times
1995). Hence, respondents feel the need to
adjust their everyday homemaking practices
to prevent the macaques’ intrusion. These
include closing windows at all time, putting
up window nettings, using monkey-proof bins
with an additional latch (Figure 4) to prevent
scavenging, wrapping wire gauze around
plants and fruit trees, and distributing circu-
lars in the neighborhood to emphasize proper
garbage disposal. Macaques’ agency thus
significantly influences the process of home-
making as residents actively prevent the
rupturing of home spaces by them (Power
2009). Macaques also change respondents’
behaviors and practices beyond home spaces:
They change my daily behavior. When I come home
around 6 pm (when macaques usually appear), I
have to carry my groceries above my shoulders to
prevent them from snatching it away or I don’t buy
too much in case they snatch everything away. They
tend to attack you if you carry red plastic bags so I
will try to carry a [non-red color] recyclable bag
with me. (Chris)
Monkeys trek pipes of the carpark ceiling to guide
their movement, and I know the spots where it may
land and stay [where the pipeline ends] and will not
park my car there to avoid dirt and feces. (Danson,
condominium resident)
Respondents also commented that they were
habituated to the macaques, having knowl-
edge about their quirks and traits. Respon-
dents like Cindy commented that macaques
tend to recognize and attack those who carry
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plastic bags, thus she uses recyclable bags,
which she claimed ‘will not get the attention of
the macaques’ (personal interview). Most
respondents feel that the best way to prevent
a conflict is to avoid eye-contact with the
macaques. They also feel that much should be
done by the authorities or primatologists to
educate them about macaques’ antics and
behaviors. Cindy also feels that macaques are
sensitive to, and could understand the verbal
and bodily expressions of humans:
I once reprimanded a monkey for attempting to
snatch my bag from me. It seems to understand my
reaction, like raising my voice, pointing a finger at
it, and it backed off.
Moreover, some of these knowings are also
sensuously gained through their dwelt experi-
ence within the borderland:
Wegotused to their sound, like it’s verynoisyatnights
during mid-years. I believe it is their mating season
then, there’s no one to snatch food from at night so I
suppose they might be fighting and screaming over
mates. True enough, after that time, you see many of
them holding their young with them. (Edward)
We know the timing the monkeys will make this
sound and then you will see them everywhere . . .
usually around late afternoon, just like the birds.
(Danson)
During some instances of encounter, respon-
dents like Edward also feel that there is a sense
of mutual empathy developed between the
macaques and him, which could potentially
avert a conflict from happening:
They seems to be able to know our human’s sense of
territory, and will stay at a distance and observe me,
at times seems scared of me. When I am around,
they will keep a distance, like knowing that’s my
territory and it should not get there.
This shared understanding is spontaneous
and non-verbal, enacted through movement,
bodily engagement like sights or stares, or
other non-linguistic forms of embodied prac-
tices. The prevention of a trans-species conflict
or transgression, at least temporarily, is made
possible through the mutual empathy that
emerged out of that situational engagement
between the two beings. This empathy also
aids in consolidating Edward’s territorial
claim over that space.
Macaques are rendered ‘out-of-place’ as the
reserve fringe becomes urbanized, subjecting
them to related exclusionary socio-spatial
practices like culling. Yet, culling, as a control
measure, is not unproblematic in the border-
land context. As borderlands are neither
completely animal nor human, they constitute
‘liminal zones’ where irrational feeling of
Figure 4 Monkey-proof bins. Authors’ own
photograph.
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anxiety is generated (Sibley 1995: 33). Anxiety
is symptomatic to an internal conflict, as
exemplified by those ambivalent, conflicting
discourses surrounding the macaques. Redu-
cing anxiety, thus re-establishment of an
ideological spatial order, requires the enforce-
ment of control/purification measures that are
often anthropocentrically rationalized. Yet,
this trans-species sharing of living spaces
within borderland, morally questions such
arbitrary control measures that denymacaques
survival opportunities in the very zones they
originally inhabit (Lynn 1998). I will next
consider the role of intermediaries, by examin-
ing how they negotiate with such exclusionary
narratives, what animal spaces then emerged
from their interactions with the residents and
why culling is still actualized, despite its
spatial–moral implications.
Intermediaries and borderland politics
Contrary to residents’ exclusionary discourses,
intermediaries mobilize discourses that seek to
include macaques within BTNR borderland,
with ecological reasoning being the most
prominent. Macaques are seen as ‘natives’ of
the reserve and vital to the forest ecosystem,
playing an important ecological role in the
food chain and in the regeneration of forest
through seed dispersal (refer to Table 1).
Generally, both MB and NParks attribute
the highly urbanized context of Singapore as
the root of human–macaque conflict, where
an urbanized lifestyle has conditioned people
to be out of sync with nature, thus generating
misconceptions and ‘negative views about
nature’ (Karen Teo, Senior Outreach Officer,
NParks, personal communication). Intermedi-
aries hence prioritize the need to educate
humans on basic reserve etiquettes to promote
a balance between conservation and recrea-
tion. Table 2 shows the various strategies
initiated by MB to create awareness about
borderland ethics, and equip both park users
and borderland residents with proper skills in
dealing with macaque encounters.
MB argues that present signboards in the
reserves do not recognize the ecological
importance of macaques; hence they propose
new signboards that take an educational tone
like those in Figure 5; raising awareness on
the negative impacts of feeding macaques,
instead of just emphasizing liable fines and
punishment.
Through mobilizations of ecological dis-
courses in their strategies, MB thus creates
discursive spaces for macaques in the border-
land. Additionally, the organization of out-
reach programs with residents to discuss
borderland ethics andmonkey-proof strategies
also raises recognition of macaques’ material
presence in the BTNR landscape. However,
receptiveness of such initiatives is highly
unequal, as only landed property residents
and foreigners are more involved in discus-
sions, and keen in individually actualizing
necessary monkey-proof measures.
Intermediaries feel that differences in hous-
ing types, and disparate wildlife experiences
between locals and foreigners, could explain
such disparity:
[R]eason why residents with houses are more
responsive is because they are responsible for their
own property. Unlike condo residents, they have no
management to depend on. (Karen, personal
communication)
Foreigners [i.e. non-citizens] are more receptive,
and willing to share their experiences than locals.
They might have experiences with wildlife when
they were back home making them more adaptive
to macaques . . . seeing them as part of nature they
enjoy. Locals are very ignorant, due to urbanized
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living environment and few experiences with
wildlife. (Mariette Ong, teacher-in-charge of MB)
Intermediaries lamented that the absence of
governmental commitment to prioritize bio-
diversity issues has led to the persistence of
human–macaque conflict. Intermediaries feel
that, to government, macaques (unlike grizzly
bears and cougars) are not that ‘exotic’ to be
conferred a protection status, and do not pose
too much of a threat to warrant attention.
‘Nuisance’ monkeys are also common in Hong
Kong and local authorities choose to use
sterilization to control their population and
tagging to monitor their behavior, rather
than outright culling (TVB 2008). However,
such expensive, time-consuming measures are
not practiced here, due to the lack of resources
and governmental support. Such a lack of
resources (in terms of having insufficient labor
to effect sterilizations of the macaques) is
arguably a reflection of the low importance
state agencies place on such issues. In any case,
intermediaries, alongside local primatologists,
believe sterilization could adversely alter a
macaque’s behavior and interactions with the
troop. Thus, like culling, sterilization is
perceived as ethically wrong and unsustainable,
Table 2 Strategies by MB to alleviate human–macaque conflict
Strategies Aims/objectives Rationale
Scattering signboards within thereserve
To warn and notifypeople of macaques presence
in the vicinity
Park users still consume food within thereserve, thus new signboards are
to warn them of possible encounters within
the vicinity
Macaque Trail, showing picturesdepicting detailed facial expression
and behaviors of macaques
To educate people tolook out for small
details of macaques, and
to react appropriately to
such situations
People tend to misinterpretexpressions/behaviors of macaques, and
lack in skills to
react to encounters appropriately
Monkey Business Ambassador Increase awareness by expanding
the project to include
students from other schools
Expansion could incorporate more students
to perform outreach program in other sites
like MacRitchie Reservoir that
also experience macaques issuesMonkey storybook for young
children
Educate children to care
for and actualize ethics
towards animals
Children can influence and
get through to their
parents betterMonkey cut outs (similar
to those cow cut
outs around Singapore)
Educate people about basic
etiquettes in the reserves
Bigger and attractive cut
outs to capture people’s attention
Figure 5 Educative ‘No Feeding’ signboard.
Authors’ own photograph.
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and intermediaries continue to work towards
finding a more humane solution to resolve the
issue.
In Singapore, although laws are implemented
to punish macaque feeders, no legislation is
drawn to consider issues of transgression, and
protecting caught macaques from culling.
‘Nuisance’ macaques do not enjoy immunity
from execution, as it is mandatory for those
caught in government-loaned traps to be culled,
without being relocated. Culling reaffirmed
macaques’ position as an ultimate ‘Other’ to be
excluded from the borderland and belonging
to ‘nowhere’, indirectly representing BTNR
as ‘wholly human’. As NParks ultimately
performs the culling, it hence emerged as an
ambivalent actor within the borderland
politics, as culling contradicts its bioconserva-
tion goals.
Politicizing culling: the ambiguity ofintermediary
BTNR is managed by the Central Nature
Reserve Branch under the Conservation
Division of NParks Operation team, with the
following goals and objectives (Karen, per-
sonal communication):
. Safeguard and conserve our biodiversity.
. As a scientific authority on conservation in
Singapore.
. Manage visitorship.
In preventing potential human–macaque
conflicts and adhering to their goals and
objectives, NParks has constantly stressed the
need to keep food out of macaques’ sight.
Apart from the placement of ‘No Feeding’
signs and CCTVs, and having routine surveil-
lance by park rangers to deter feeding, NParks
also advise residents to ‘monkey-proof’ their
homes, arguing that the choice to reside close
to nature entails the need for humans to adapt
to nature, not vice versa.
NParks is tasked to mitigate conflicts that
occur both within, and at the fringe of the
reserve. Complaints are made by residents
through phone or email. NParks will often
attempt to resolve the conflict over the phone
without visiting the homes of complaining
residents, unless requested. There is a pro-
cedure in the mitigation process. Firstly,
NParks will try to understand the problem
from the resident’s perspective. The process of
negotiation follows next, with NParks empha-
sizing the importance of observing borderland
ethics and suggesting ways to ‘monkey-proof’
the house to prevent recurrence of conflicts.
There are mixed reactions towards this advice,
where some will heed, and others ignore it
arguing that they ‘should not be told what to
do within the privacy of their homes’ (Karen,
personal communication). It is such attitudes
of the latter group that lead NParks to the last
stage of their mitigation process, namely the
loaning of monkey cages to the residents upon
their insistence. Residents are then told that
macaques caught in the cages are to be culled,
ultimately giving them the choice to decide
on the life chances of the macaques. Karen
comments that most residents are very
adamant on the execution of the macaques at
this stage.
In allowing residents to decide on the
survival of the macaques, NParks acquires a
highly ambivalent position as it forgoes its
main objective of conserving biodiversity to
appease residents who simply cannot get along
with the macaques. It is also an acknowl-
edgment and deference to the fact that
residents, because of their dwelt perspective,
shouldhavea considerable say inhow theywant
their living spaces to be. However, feelings of
ambivalence are evident as intermediaries often
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feel emotionally uncomfortable in culling the
macaques (Karen, personal communication).
Understanding that NParks has to juggle and
balance multiple contradictory goals, culling
is then a compromised solution as anthro-
pocentric interests ultimately take ascendance
over concerns of animal welfare. NParks hence
arguably does not assume an objective stance
when mitigating borderland conflicts. Instead,
its subjectivities and positionalities should be
conceptualized as situational, always shifting,
and are effects of their enrolment into the
conflict between animals/humans, in which
their agencies, and the ensuing macaque spaces
(whether ‘here’ or ‘nowhere’), are always
emerging from the immediacy of their nego-
tiations with the residents.
Conclusion
Macaques are constructed as liminal animals
(Power 2009); ambivalently perceived as ‘in-
/excluded’, as urbanization encroaches into
BTNR. BTNR, as an in-between, ‘grey zone’ of
humanity–animality, not only subjects resi-
dents to irrational (in that there have been few
documented cases of humans physically
harmed by the macaques) fear and anxiety
specifically during moments of transgressions,
but also prevents wildlife management inter-
mediaries like NParks from assuming an
objective, neutral position in conflict mitiga-
tion. The case study also illuminates the
paradoxical position of primates (such as
macaques) held by humans. Respondents’
expectations of the primates vacillate between
seeing them as humans (in that they want the
macaques to be ‘self-disciplined’) and seeing
them as dispensable, non-human, creatures (in
that they want the macaques to be culled as an
ultimate form of discipline for transgressive
behaviors). Culling, as a situational compro-
mised solution, undermines intermediaries’
inclusionary discourses of macaques and
perpetuates the ideology that borderlands are
zones for humans, rather than as supposed
zones of trans-species co-existence. From a
‘geoethical’ perspective (Lynn 1998), such ad
hoc solutions remain highly arbitrary and
morally problematic, as human interests still
overshadow animal welfare. Yet, borderland
residents still acknowledge the importance of
adapting to the immediate environmental
context and the wildlife. We argue that
sensitivity to their own sensuous geography in
moments of trans-species encounter, together
with accumulated knowledge and experiences
achieved through dwelling, could enable
alternative interpretations of their relation-
ship with the macaques, thus avoiding conflict
and the need to resort to culling. In resolving
borderland human–animal conflicts, a more
institutionalized solution is required, where
legislation prioritizes biodiversity and animal
welfare, and recognizes borderlands as stub-
born, ambiguous human–animal zones that
necessitate residents’ adaptations. Without
such changes, futile negotiations will continue
to work around irrational exclusionary dis-
courses that are often deprived of animal voices
and ‘beastliness’.
Note
1 This is not to say that non-urban areas are free from such
human–animal conflicts. Naughton-Treves, Treves,
Chapman and Wrangham (1998) have documented the
importance of managing wildlife intrusions and conflicts
in rural Uganda. Patterson and Wallis (2005) in their
edited volume have also focused on human–primate
conflicts in largely rural areas.
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Abstract translations
Manigances: des conflits humains–animaux dans leSingapour urbain
Des conflits continuels entre les humains et lesmacaques aux longues queues (Macaca fascicularis)dans la Reserve Naturelle de Bukit Timat,Singapour ont vu des macaques natifs significative-ment atteints, pendant que le developpementresidentiel empiete sur les habitats des animauxet detruit des couloirs des faunes. La recherche pourun traitement plus humain de ces animauxtransgressifs peut etre vue comme une tentatived’elargissement et d’inclusion des animaux non-humains dans des notions humanistiques desethiques et des soins, destabilisant en meme tempsla division assumee entre humain/animal. Pourtant,une solution realisable est difficile a atteindre parceque le Conseil des Parcs Nationaux (NParks),l’agence d’etat supervisant la conservation desreserves et des faunes, a constamment besoin denegocier entre leur but du maintient de labiodiversite et l’attenuement des residents recla-mants. Cet article cherche a comprendre les conflitszones urbaines-zones naturels entre humains–macaques, montrant que la division entre apprivoi-se/sauvage est multi-site, ambigue, et constammentvariable. Dans ce point de vue, nous nous sommesspecialement interesses dans le role des interme-diaires pour mettre en œuvres des actions de ‘fairedes espaces discursifs ainsi que des espaces
materiels’ pour les macaques dans la reserve. Desintermediaires, ici en reference de NParks et desactivistes des animaux, sont des acteurs qui neresident pas a cote de la reserve donc n’ayant pas derencontres frequentes avec la faune, et qui sontpourtant inscrits comme mitigateurs pendant lesinstances des conflits humains–animaux.
Mots-clefs: Mots-clefs: geographie animal, poli-tiques environnementales, transgression, frontieres,urbanisation, intermediaires.
Monkey business: conflictos humanos–animales enSingapur urbano
Conflictos actuales entre humanos y macacos delargo cola (Macaca fascicularis) en La Reserva
Natural de Buktit Timah, Singapur, han afectado la
poblacion de macacos nativos considerablemente; el
desarrollo residencial se esta invadiendo al habitat de
los animales y destruyendo pasillos importantes de
fauna y flora. Se puede comprender la busqueda por
un tratamiento mas humano de estos animales
transgresivos como un intento extender e incluir
animales no-humanos entre nociones humanistas de
eticas y cuidado, y en el proceso desestabilizar la
division humana/animal presumida. Pero es difıcil
llegar a una solucion viable porque La Junta de los
Parques Nacionales (NParks), la agencia civil que se
supervisa la conservacion de las reservas y la flora y
fauna, tiene que negociar constantemente entre su
meta de mantener la biodiversidad y apaciguar los
residentes quienes se quejan. Este papel se intenta
entender los conflictos urbanos-selvaticos entre
humanos y macacos, mostrando que la division entre
domado/salvaje esta multi-situada, ambigua y cam-
biando constantemente. En este sentido, lo que nos
interesa particularmente es el rollo que tiene los
intermediarios para hacer ‘espacios discursivos y
materiales’ para macacos en la reserva. Los
intermediarios, NParks y los activistas animalistas,
son actores quienes no viven cerca de reserva y ası no
se encuentran frecuentemente con los animales, aun
trabajan como mediadores durante instantes de
conflicto humano–animal.
Palabras claves: geografıa animalista, polıticaambiental, transgresion, tierras fronterizas, urbani-zacion, intermediarios.
Monkey business 699
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