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This article introduces the concept of animals' atmospheres, as a contribution to work in animal and atmospheric geographies. It defines the concept and identifies the key factors that shape an animals' atmosphere. These offer a framework for future comparative research. The second section focuses on methodological and epistemic challenges of knowing and representing animal atmospheres. The third section examines engineering of animals' atmospheres, in context of the biopolitics of managing animal life in the Anthropocene. In conclusion, the article highlights its contributions. Illustrations are drawn from the atmospheres of dogs and wolves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the social and political in relation to fabrications of earth/life has been one of geography's most enduring concerns. Friedrich Ratzel's Lebensraum essay, subtitled ‘a biogeographical study’, is an early exposition of how relations between the bio and the geo are politically molten. Yet his oeuvre, whilst of interest to political geographers, has been overlooked in the recent proliferation of work on the earth/life nexus in more-than-human geography. To this end, this commentary asks what it might mean to read Ratzel's essay in light of attempts to articulate and specify the cartographies of life. Three key themes are highlighted that resonate with contemporary more-than-human approaches: the spatial ontologies of animal life, animals' mobilities and cartographies of the living world. More specifically, this commentary expands upon Ratzel's notion of the oecumene and argues that it offers up critical purchase for diagramming animals' ontologies in ways sensitive to geographical concerns with nonhuman difference, lifeworlds and movement. A brief conclusion identifies avenues for future research and engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper maps into geographies of 'lively commodities', commodities whose value derives from their status as living beings. In an era where life itself has become a locus of capitalist accumulation, picking apart the category of 'liveliness' underpinning commodification has important analytical and geographical stakes. To this end, by tracking historical geographies of commodifying lions in political economies of ecotourism in India, this paper shows how more-than-human labour and lively potentials affect commodification and influence accumulation, not simply through recalcitrance, but as active participants within political economic organisation. The paper advances and develops a triad of relational concepts - nonhuman labour, encounter value, spectacular accumulation - through which the political economic potency of lively commodities might be articulated and grasped. It concludes by discussing the analytical potential of this approach and its future purchase for rethinking commodity geographies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The media play a key role in communicating conservation issues such as human-wildlife conflict, but corresponding literature on how issues are represented is limited. This article traces the depiction of human-elephant conflict in the media by examining (a) how conflicts are framed and (b) how ultimate and proximate causes are communicated in Indian and international newspapers. Issues were often polarized or framed in dramatic terms, and consonance in reporting causes was lacking. Active engagement with the media is needed to produce a nuanced debate on conflict, for which recognizing the role of different actors and working closely with individual journalists are vital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]