Shared Spaces, Practices And Mobilities: Pet–Human Life in Modern Finnish Homes

Abstract

In this interdisciplinary article, we examine multispecies homes in modernizing Finnish society. We focus on two illustrative phases of pet culture: cats and dogs in bourgeois and rural homes from the late 19th century to the early 20th century as well as international dog rescue in the early 21st century. We make visible and analyze the continuities in pet–human relationality and petness by focusing on everyday practices, spaces and mobilities. The article draws from recent discussions on human–animal relationality at the intersections of the fields of animal history, animal geography and animal studies. Our analysis shows that the pets we have studied have not been passive objects or simply obeyed rules set by humans. Instead, pet–human co-living involves shared human–animal agency and situational practices that take into account the individual animal and the human and the creative ways in which they shape the shared space.