Becoming-rat: an examination of the politics of vermin

Abstract

This Masters research is motivated by a twofold concern: to expand research into non-human animals in social and cultural geography, and to explore the possibilities of an anti-essentialist animal geography. Namely, this masters aims to use the Deleuzian tool of 'assemblage' as a means of understanding human and animal co-constitution. The focal point of this master's research is an exploration of the neglected politics of vermin, a markedly violent site of human- animal configuration. This is accessed in two ways: first through a cultural history of the rat, and then through studies of the use of different rat traps and devices used to kill, control or catch rats in Victorian and contemporary contexts. Moving from these devices, this masters demonstrates the different humans and rats constituted through the act of rat expurgation, and the way in which the act of rat transgression and eradication works to perform the boundaries of changing geographies.