Horsification: Embodied gentrification in rural landscapes

Abstract

In this paper, I consider the role of animals in gentrification processes, developing a conceptualisation of ‘horsification’: the proliferation of horses within a locale, resulting directly from (human) residential migration. Horses are a highly charismatic species. Practices of horse keeping offer rich opportunities for encounter, shaping the bodies and knowledge of both horses and their keepers. Utilising examples from a case study in rural Scotland, I describe the affective logics of residential horse keeping and how these logics play out in specific types of economic investment and social interaction. I demonstrate how the materialities of horse bodies are embodied in specific landscape changes: qualities of pasture, styles of fencing and stables, and new sanded manèges, and lead to the territorialisation and contestation of broader rural landscapes. Consideration of animal-human relationships de-centres human agency in gentrification studies, drawing attention to the affective and relational processes of gentrification, and how gentrification is performed and territorialised on an ongoing basis. In conceptualising horsification, I draw attention to the agency of more-than-human actors and the role of land in gentrification processes.