Five propositions on ferals

In September 2015, I gave a talk at Siteworks, an arts festival that takes place at Bundanon (see Bundanon Trust https://bundanon.com.au/) on the South Coast of New South Wales about two hours south of Sydney, Australia. The theme for the festival was "The Feral Amongst Us." In my talk, I started off by asking the audience about their relationships with companion animals; the response indicated that most had companion animals in their lives and cared about the quality of their relationships with animals. Asking an audience about their own relationships with animals is a common and useful strategy in Animal Studies talks (especially those for a general public) because it can help resituate (rehome?) the abstract "animal" into more relatable terms. It also makes the effects of categorical thinking palpable: relatability wears thin and often falls apart across categorical divisions and between them, such as those animals named "feral." The text of my talk follows from this first engagement with the audience about their own companions and then describes five propositions on ferals.