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Chains of Control and Reins of Resistance: Nonhuman Animals and the Plantationocene in the American South
This paper is part of the first chapter of my dissertation, which looks at the impact of nonhuman animals on the institution of slavery in the American South. It examines multispecies entanglements within the plantation complex and argues for the centrality of nonhuman animals to methods of control exerted by enslavers, as well as strategies of resistance developed by the enslaved. In particular, it will focus on how enslavers weaponized the threat of non-domesticated animals living beyond the plantation in creating a geography of containment while also using domesticated animals—especially dogs and horses—as living embodiments of surveillance and recapture in a calculated process to enforce spatial control and limit the movement of enslaved persons. In this way, the plantation is viewed as a highly manipulated social and environmental ecosystem that linked the exploitation of human and nonhuman animals to the broader framework of capitalism, monoculturalism, and the maintenance of power.
Join online via Microsoft Teams: tinyurl.com/bdhmjvn7
Date:
12 June 2025, 12:30
Venue:
ONLINE via Microsoft Teams
Speaker:
Bill Smith (DPhil History)
Organising department:
Faculty of History
Part of:
Environmental History Working Group
Booking required?:
Not required
Audience:
Members of the University only
Editor:
Belinda Clark
