Academic Journal

An Emotional Ecology of Pigeons in Early Modern England and America

Bibliographic Details
Title: An Emotional Ecology of Pigeons in Early Modern England and America
Authors: John Emrys Morgan
Source: Morgan, J E 2022, 'An emotional ecology of pigeons in early modern England and America', Environment and History, vol. 28, no. 3, pp. 435-452. https://doi.org/10.3197/096734022x16551974226090
Publisher Information: Liverpool University Press, 2022.
Publication Year: 2022
Subject Terms: name=Centre for Environmental Humanities, 0106 biological sciences, dovecotes, pigeons, early modern England, 06 humanities and the arts, emotions, 01 natural sciences, passenger pigeons, 0601 history and archaeology, colonial America
Description: This article explores the feelings English people had about, and with, pigeons in early modern England and America. In so doing, the paper uses the concept of an emotional ecology, an understanding of emotion that is situated in a web of relations with other creatures and things. To do this, the paper outlines the context of everyday interactions with pigeons in England and uses these contexts to explore how rural tenants felt about the pigeons in their midst. Hungry, fecund and gregarious, pigeons cut a divisive figure in the English landscape. Legal sanction and customary practice marked them as privileged while a wide range of other potential agricultural pests were enthusiastically suppressed. We then look at how settler colonists experienced an abundance of American pigeons, particularly the Passenger Pigeon which would be hunted to extinction in the nineteenth century. Together, this story provides an example of how environments, culture and emotions are mutually, if not equally, constitutive.
Document Type: Article
File Description: application/pdf
Language: English
ISSN: 1752-7023
0967-3407
DOI: 10.3197/096734022x16551974226090
Access URL: https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/ws/files/280697760/_emotion_SI_5._Emotional_ecology_of_pigeons.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/1983/60cce607-8548-4be4-aebe-73a17d0af164
Accession Number: edsair.doi.dedup.....7f276f1bcb05a0e96b2893d0a4089a7b
Database: OpenAIRE
Description
ISSN:17527023
09673407
DOI:10.3197/096734022x16551974226090