Urban Parks and Acceptable Animal Bodies

Abstract

Summary Urban parks are critical spaces for outdoor leisure. As urban sprawl increases, these places are highly valued by humans as ways to experience enhanced wellbeing through recreational activities. This has been a primary purpose behind humans’ physical and social construction of urban parks over the last two centuries. Their importance and constructed nature mean they are highly ordered social spaces (Taylor, 1999 ). As such, bodies, in terms of appearances and actions, are designated as either appropriate or not in urban parks. The homeless human body, for example, is socially positioned as deviating from suitable norms and, thus, a challenge that authorities try to deal with by removal (Rose, 2014 ). As well as applying to humans, social norms around body desirability in urban parks relate to other species. In this case study, acceptable and unacceptable non-human animal bodies are considered. The case interweaves a discussion with notes on legislation, rules, and visitor guidance (henceforth ‘management documents’) that govern urban parks within UK city council boundaries. Such regulatory techniques are significant in constructing norms that constitute park order (Taylor, 1999). How animals are positioned via these is indicative of their acceptability. The case considers how acceptance of animal bodies means urban parks are spaces of control and deviance. It does so by illustrating that human ideals of value and control are instrumental for animal body suitability. Information © CAB International 2024