The Hedgehog from Jordan: Or, How to Locate the Movement of Wild Animals in a Partially Mediterranean Context

Abstract

This chapter considers Mediterranean crosslocations in terms of nonhuman animals. It begins with a hedgehog crossing the border between Jordan and Israel, and describes some of the ways it has been spatially located. One involves formal scientific classification systems: Latin naming conventions, concepts of habitat and ideas about indigeneity. The hedgehog’s designated habitat overlaps with another locating system in the region, the state border territorial structure, which is not at all relevant to hedgehogs. A third layer is to consider how the hedgehog might fit into the idea of Mediterranean, to which a short answer is: awkwardly. The chapter then moves away from hedgehogs to briefly describe how people in different parts of the geographical Mediterranean have accounted for the dramatic rise in populations of wild boar in their area in recent years. Wild boar are among a number of animals that have suddenly appeared, or rapidly increased in number, in many areas in the geographical Mediterranean region. Looking at how people have accounted for this provides one way to briefly explore how the logic of locating regimes might be deployed to explain changes in the spatial presence of non-human animals.