Governing multispecies relations: Chickens, bats, and heritage in the urban fabric

Multispecies urban theory and more-than-human approaches have challenged hierarchical human–animal binaries by foregrounding nonhuman actors in urban space. This paper argues that human–animal relations and animality are not simply relational or agentic but are mediated through multiple, overlapping regimes of governance that differentially classify, manage, and intervene in animal life. Drawing on participant observation and interviews at an industrial heritage site in Hsinchu, Taiwan, the paper examines how animal governance intersects with heritage governance through the co-presence of domesticated chickens and a protected bat species. At the site, chickens evoke vernacular memories of informal dwellings while being reconfigured from economic animals into companion animals and objects of environmental education within a community-based feeding network. In contrast, efforts to conserve an endangered bat species facilitated the designation of an industrial chimney as a heritage object, folding wildlife conservation into heritage-making practices. Civic organizations mobilized around these animals, generating new socio-spatial possibilities while remaining constrained by state-led conservation frameworks and redevelopment agendas. The paper concludes that urban animals are selectively included or excluded through governance regimes and civic networks, revealing asymmetrical power relations that complicate normative accounts of multispecies coexistence in the contemporary city.