The Global Pigeon

Abstract

is quintessential city bird. Domesticated thousands of years ago as a messenger and a source of food, its presence on our sidewalks is so common that people consider bird a nuisance - if they notice it at all. Yet pigeons are also kept by people all over world for pleasure, sport, and profit, from pigeon wars waged by breeding enthusiasts in skies over Brooklyn to Million Dollar Race held every year in South Africa. Drawing on more than three years of fieldwork across three continents, Colin Jerolmack traces our complex and often contradictory relationship with these versatile animals in public spaces such as Venice's Piazza San Marco and London's Trafalgar Square and in working-class and immigrant communities of breeders in New York and Berlin. By exploring what he calls the social experience of animals, Jerolmack shows how our interactions with pigeons offer surprising insights into city life, community, culture, and politics. Theoretically understated and accessible to interested readers of all stripes, The Global Pigeon is one of best and most original ethnographies to be published in decades.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 32 citations exist upstream.