Dogness: Colonial Traces and Whiteness in Multi-Species Dog-Human Relations

Canidad: rastros coloniales y blanquidad en las relaciones multiespecie perro-humano

This article intends to discuss normalizing ideals of so-called “dogness”, as a physical metaphorical space of colonial-civilizational fantasies around history, “dog’s nature”, their semiotic-material insertion in the social structure, and bodily affective codes. I argue that dogs, much like subalternized and “animalized” human groups have been subjected to whitening regimes in order to ensure their permanence and belonging to Mexican urban society in Mexico City, particularly on the assumption that by being “animals”, they are uncapable to self-governing. To analyze that, I outline a historic-ethnographic journey on an interspecies approach to think about speciesism as an affective order using stereotyped forms of love and caring as technologies aiming for dog control, with this need for control being traced back to the Conquest, and the role of Colonial White-modern male.