University of Michigan doctoral student Lavrentia Karamaniola, supervised by Dr. Alaina Lemon, will undertake socio-ecological research on the growing worldwide phenomenon of urban centers being shared with very large numbers of stray animals. Today, more than half of the world's population lives in cities, and the existence of stray animals and the threats that they produce to public safety figure significantly into urban understandings of ecology. Stray animals are viewed simultaneously as both a result of urban development, as well as an impediment to the socioeconomic development in the expanding urban spaces. Understanding how growth changes the ways that people inhabit urban space is of critical importance to solving many social and economic problems.
Karamaniola's research will be undertaken in the Romanian capital of Bucharest, currently home to almost 2 million people. She will employ a range of social science methodologies to collect data. The growth of the stray animal population in Bucharest is alleged to be a direct result of twentieth century urban renewal projects. Therefore, the researcher will commence with an investigation of Bucharest's spatial history in a context of a changing political economy. She will collect historical information in three different archives, and she will conduct interviews with architects, urban planners and members of the Municipal Board. To investigate contemporary urban social relations, Karamaniola will carry out ethnographic research among employees and citizen volunteers in a non-governmental organization that works with urban animals and do participant observation in urban neighborhoods. Interviews will also be used to investigate the symbolic tension between an urban ecology full of marginal animals and national aspirations for post-socialist economic and social development.
The research is important because it will contribute to new social science theory of cities. Findings will also contribute insights into socialist and post-socialist history, as experienced through the transformations of urban centers. Funding this research also supports the education of a graduate student.
This project examined how the stray dog population in Bucharest is related to urban development, social class formation, and processes of marginalization. While NGOs have undertaken efforts to control the stray dog population in the city through sterilization, the dogs numbered 45,000 just recently, when the law for euthanasia was voted after a pack of stray dogs was assumed to have killed a 4-year-old boy in one of Bucharest’s parks. During the 1990s, the stray dog population was estimated at 100,000, following displacement through the demolition of houses with yards at the command of Nicolae Ceausescu—making space for his own palace to be built. My research activities included participant observation in public and private dog shelters, in a veterinary clinic, and in a former communist neighborhood. In these settings I interviewed animal-lovers, volunteers, employees, dog owners, and public officials. Moreover, I conducted archival research in two different institutions of Bucharest, I studied architectural plans and maps, and I participated in protests against and for euthanasia, where discourses about the country’s Europeanization were prevalent. My findings are classified under three categories: a) how stray dogs have been related to ideas of development, public health, and ecology since the 1860s, b) how stray dogs have been related to the changing political economy and the formation of social class during and after communism, and c) how marginal populations like the Roma or the homeless are further marginalized in discussions about stray dogs. Concerning the first category, my research revealed that the sanitization of the city has been an important matter for the City Hall of Bucharest since 1860. Dog skins and other animal products were used until the 1950s for the production of gloves or soap, after the dogs were killed at the periphery of the city. Such practices, which endured into the years of early communism, changed during the 1960s. After Nicolae Ceausescu became Romania’s leader, the plight of stray dogs became associated with the newly introduced life in residential buildings. Bringing animals inside these tiny apartments was not allowed, since it would not support the modern lifestyle. Any existing stray dogs were killed with the use of strychnine that was thrown close to trash bins. Concerning the second category, my research uncovered that urban development and urbanism is not just an issue of architecture or of public institutions. The city is closely tied to the socioeconomic background of its inhabitants. In Bucharest, this link indexes dimensions of the social class formation that took place after the revolution of 1989. While various inhabitants throughout Bucharest’s neighborhoods care for stray dogs, usually called "community dogs," people that are seen as the uprising middle class are fighting for the dogs’ massive euthanasia and for their own right to bicycle in a dog-free city. Animal-lovers are seen to be the most compassionate towards animals, but also the bearers of an old communist mentality. Thus, a person is seen as civilized through practices that are inhumane. Concerning the third category, my research shows how Romanians connect stray dogs to the homeless and the Roma, thus contributing to these groups’ marginalization, in three different ways: a) by talking about the behavior of dogcatchers, who tend to be Roma, as these discussions tend to perpetuate stereotypes of the ethnicity as a whole, b) by assuming that dogs will bark at Roma or the homeless because the animals can "sense" racial differences and c) by drawing parallels between such populations and stray dogs, as parasites that live off white Romanians’ resources. While in Bucharest, I gave talks in academic institutions and an interview for an online journal. Research findings have also been presented at conferences in Europe and in the United States. Through future presentations I will further contribute to the education of the local population. This will hopefully result in the better long-term management of stray dogs in Bucharest, in the improvement of infrastructures, and in the elimination of discrimination against marginalized citizens. Using Bucharest as a case study, my research bears on policy debates regarding stray animals in urban spaces, and the improvement of both animal and human life condition. Given the importance of sustainable urban development, understanding problems of urbanism around the world, and particularly in cities with large populations of stray dogs, as in the Balkans, the former Soviet Union, Latin America, or India is crucial. My project shows how urban ecology must be seen through a prism of continuously changing relations between animals and humans, and how the issue of public health must be seen in relation to actual events, but also in relation to their representations. In the social sciences this project contributes to discussions about the role of modernization in urban planning, about the transformations of post-socialist cities, and about European Union policies for the management of urban space.
