Backyards as borderlands

Abstract

This thesis documents and analyzes motivations for and methods used in keeping prohibited urban livestock in Athens, GA. Through their animals, participants in this study reimagine, resist, and rework normative urban landscapes. Backyards act as borderlands of struggles to change normative human-animal relationships and undermine dominant food systems. Urban livestock keepers' viewpoints and actions are examined and related to food movements in the US using an analytical framework of three typologies of political action for food sovereignty (libertarian, civil disobedient, and radical collectivist). Exploring the extent and ways in which participants engage with food sovereignty narratives expands an understanding of the developing concept of food sovereignty in the US. The analytical framework developed in this thesis, used to view participants' actions and beliefs, offers a way of thinking about current and future food sovereignty efforts. Interviews with urban livestock keepers, neighbors without urban livestock, and elected officials in Athens, GA reveal the importance of political and territorial autonomy to achieve food sovereignty.