Animal Traffic: Lively Capital in the Global Exotic Pet Trade

"From parrots and snakes to wild cats and monkeys, exotic animals have become desirable pets across the world and especially in the US, coveted not only for their beauty but also because they are fascinating, intelligent, or rare. ANIMAL TRAFFIC looks atthe contemporary exotic pet trade to examine how capitalism shapes and constrains nonhuman life, making animals into lively commodities that are treated as property instead of as living creatures. Drawing on Marx, Collard shows how animal capital is subject to a double fetish: a commodity fetish that turns animals into things that can be traded, and animal fetishization, which cuts animals off from their own complex histories, even when done in the name of "love" for animals. In response, she calls for awild life politics, in which animals are not enclosed, are able to retain their autonomy, and can live for the sake of themselves and their communities. The chapters of the book are animated by stories and anecdotes from Collard's years of ethnographic research at multiple sites of the exotic pet trade. She starts at the Maya Biosphere Reserve in Guatemala, discussing the illegal capture of spider monkeys and scarlet macaws-a process by which these coveted animals are disentangled from their own communities and brought into a new human network in which their bodies are confined and privately owned. Collard shows that capture and enclosure is a process that makes animals into things while simultaneously valuing their sentience and companionability. Next, Collard looks at exotic animal auctions in the rural US as a site where the animal's commodity status is performed and consolidated, and where cultural conflict arises between animal lovers who trade in exotic animals and animal rights activists who seek to curtail this exchange. She next writes about her time volunteering at ARCAS, a wildlife rehabilitation center in northern Guatemala, where animals are trained to fear human encounter and become independent of humans in an attempt to re-instill natural behaviors that will allow them to avoid re-capture once they are released. In all of these sites, Collard shows that the commodification of animals in the exotic pet trade is part of a bio-economic trend in which life is commodified under modern capitalism"--
Parrots and snakes, wild cats and monkeys---exotic pets can now be found everywhere from skyscraper apartments and fenced suburban backyards to roadside petting zoos. In Animal Traffic Rosemary-Claire Collard investigates the multibillion-dollar global exotic pet trade and the largely hidden processes through which exotic pets are produced and traded as lively capital. Tracking the capture of animals in biosphere reserves in Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize; their exchange at exotic animal auctions in the United States; and the attempted rehabilitation of former exotic pets at a wildlife center in Guatemala, Collard shows how exotic pets are fetishized both as commodities and as objects. Their capture and sale sever their ties to complex socio-ecological networks in ways that make them appear as if they do not have lives of their own. Collard demonstrates that the enclosure of animals in the exotic pet trade is part of a bio-economic trend in which life is increasingly commodified and objectified under capitalism. Ultimately, she calls for a &;wild life&; politics in which animals are no longer enclosed, retain their autonomy, and can live for the sake of themselves.
Rosemary-Claire Collard investigates the multibillion-dollar global exotic pet trade economy and the largely hidden processes through which exotic pets are produced and traded as lively capital.