Animating Capture

Abstract

While zoos are typically defined as spaces of confinement, this article explores how mobility infrastructures sustained animal captivity at the turn of the twentieth century. Building on the animal biography method, I focus on the life story of one particular Asian elephant as a microhistory of animal mobility under captivity. Tracing the trajectories of trade and exchange in animals highlights the role of circuses in both mobilizing the affective registers of animal performance and supplying zoos with specimens. This article emphasizes the tension between mobility and constraint in the circulation of knowledge about elephants, as well as the role of affect in making individual animals visible through history.

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