Contested Boundaries

Abstract

This chapter explores human and non-human animal territorial conflicts at a cultural tourism destination through the lens of posthumanist political ecology. It analyses how space is contested by attending to interspecies interactions on Japan’s Miyajima Island, specifically, human–deer interactions. The study shows that humans frame deer into the ‘wild’ space, removing the deer from the place where they belong, although this imagined boundary is constantly crossed by the deer and humans. This evidence indicates that the deer are active agents and the existing landscapes of Miyajima Island have, to a certain extent, been influenced through constant interactions with humans and the deer. Recognizing close human–deer relationship as one essential component of heritage in Miyajima would help us coexist with the deer.

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