Cat Worlds of Beirut
Cat Worlds of Beirut
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During my Master's at the American University of Beirut, I conducted an ethnographic project on the relationships between urban residents and the hundreds of stray cats that populate Beirut's streets.
During my Master's at the American University of Beirut, I conducted an ethnographic project on the relationships between urban residents and the hundreds of stray cats that populate Beirut's streets.
Introduction
Introduction
Several hundreds of stray cats live in Ras Beirut. These cats are neglected by official institutions or entities like the government, local municipality, or NGOs. Instead, the cats are taken care of through voluntary and dispersed acts of feeding undertaken by a variety of urban residents - "cat-feeders."
The cat-feeders engage in daily feeding activities for the cats around their neighborhoods and on their feeding trails. This becomes an intrinsic part of their routine and requires exerted work and determination.
As a part of my ethnographic research, I accompanied and helped the cat-feeders with their daily feeding activities along their respective routes through the city. Consequently, I became acquainted with a new version of the city of Beirut: one where caring, mutual, and reciprocal relationalities are prioritized.
I explored questions like:
I explored questions like:
What drives the practice and effort of feeding the cats?
What drives the practice and effort of feeding the cats?
What kind of framework do cat-human relationships in Beirut provide for studying care and relationality?
What kind of framework do cat-human relationships in Beirut provide for studying care and relationality?
How is the city of Beirut made and experienced through these cat-human relationships?
How is the city of Beirut made and experienced through these cat-human relationships?
Labors of care: multispecies relations of obligation & reciprocity
Labors of care: multispecies relations of obligation & reciprocity
As I spent more time with them, I realized that although the cat-feeders care for the cats, this is not always a pleasant or joyful experience. Yet despite the arduous nature of their labor of care, the cat-feeders are persistent in fulfilling their daily feeding activities. Where does this sense of responsibility or obligation to the cats come from? By studying the way in which the cat-feeders are drawn to the stray cats and how they explain or justify their caring activities, I explore the bonds of obligation and reciprocity with which they are tied to the cats.
Urban space: neighborhood negotiations & place-making
Urban space: neighborhood negotiations & place-making
The cat-feeders are active participants in the creation of a particular urban fabric. They forge their own paths through the city and build feeding stations and shelters in spaces that are convenient to them.
The cat-feeders are active participants in the creation of a particular urban fabric. They forge their own paths through the city and build feeding stations and shelters in spaces that are convenient to them.
Cat-feeders are often confronted by other urban residents or landlords about the “smell” or disturbances that their cat-feeding activities pose. I observed how cat-feeders negotiate these conflicts to enable themselves to feed cats through relations of “akhidh w ʿaṭa” or “give-and-take.”
Cat-feeders are often confronted by other urban residents or landlords about the “smell” or disturbances that their cat-feeding activities pose. I observed how cat-feeders negotiate these conflicts to enable themselves to feed cats through relations of “akhidh w ʿaṭa” or “give-and-take.”
My project thus examined the manifold ways in which cat-caring and feeding practices interact with space in the city.
My project thus examined the manifold ways in which cat-caring and feeding practices interact with space in the city.
Building an alternative city
Building an alternative city
In 2020, the world in which I lived was overtaken by collapse and destruction following the COVID-19 pandemic, the economic crisis, and the Beirut port explosion.
Combining sensory and visual ethnography, participant-observation, semi-structured interviews, and multi-sited fieldwork, my thesis uncovered how ordinary people engage in creative and caring relations with their surroundings within and in spite of this overwhelmingly dystopian reality.
Following cat-human entanglements in Beirut led me to an alternative understanding of care, relationality, and possibility. Their multispecies practices of care seemed to point to cracks in the city’s landscape and in its altered and deadened atmosphere. These cracks are small spaces of alterity where humans and animals cared for one another and where the city was occupied in different ways. From these cracks, new possibilities can spring.
A cat home made out of an assortment of "garbage" or "waste" - an old suitcase, tires, styrofoam, cardboard, plastic bottles, and old sofa cushions - exemplifying how the people of the city creatively make life possible, against all odds, for the street cats. In my thesis, I asked: What can we learn from such practices?
A cat home made out of an assortment of "garbage" or "waste" - an old suitcase, tires, styrofoam, cardboard, plastic bottles, and old sofa cushions - exemplifying how the people of the city creatively make life possible, against all odds, for the street cats. In my thesis, I asked: What can we learn from such practices?
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