Unveiling Dark Sites
Urbex/Rurex as a Method in Critical Animal History
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jca.30043Keywords:
animal history, dark tourism, farms, rurex, slaughterhouses, urbexAbstract
This article explores the potential and limitations of utilizing rural exploration (rurex) as a method in critical animal studies, with a particular focus on the subfield of animal history. Documentary evidence detailing the lives and deaths of animals in history is remarkably scarce, but the relative accessibility of material remains from the contemporary past means that new field methods based on archaeological thinking may serve as a valuable tool for gathering crucial insights into the historical experiences of animals. The article describes investigative journeys through abandoned architectural structures linked to animal exploitation in Poland, focusing on three specific sites used during the communist era (1944–1989) and possibly into the early post-communist period, all of which are now in ruins: a farm, a slaughterhouse and an incineration plant. I argue that exploring material environments of animal exploitation is often the only means of accessing practices that go unnoticed due to their marginal status in the popular imagination. Although such access via remnants is always partial and imperfect, it can illuminate aspects of interspecies relations that cultural representations may overlook, such as the material dimensions of spaces, physical sensations and the interactions between humans and animal bodies within the built environment.
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