The Global Pigeon

by Colin Jerolmack

The pigeon is the quintessential city bird. Domesticated thousands of years ago as a messenger and a source of food, its presence on our sidewalks is so common that people consider the bird a nuisance—if they notice it at all. Yet pigeons are also kept for pleasure, sport, and profit by people all over the world, from the “pigeon wars” waged by breeding enthusiasts in the skies over Brooklyn to the Million Dollar Pigeon Race held every year in South Africa.


Drawing on more than three years of fieldwork across three continents, Colin Jerolmack traces our complex and often contradictory relationship with these versatile animals in public spaces such as Venice’s Piazza San Marco and London’s Trafalgar Square and in working-class and immigrant communities of pigeon breeders in New York and Berlin. By exploring what he calls “the social experience of animals,” Jerolmack shows how our interactions with pigeons offer surprising insights into city life, community, culture, and politics. Theoretically understated and accessible to interested readers of all stripes, The Global Pigeon is one of the best and most original ethnographies to be published in decades.

Genres: Nonfiction, Birds, Animals, Sociology, Nature, Ethnography, Science

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

I am a professor of sociology and environmental studies at NYU, where I also teach courses on human-animal relations. My first book, "The Global Pigeon," explores how human-animal relations shape our experience of urban life. My second book, "Up To Heaven and Down to Hell: Fracking, Freedom, and Community in an American town," follows residents of a rural Pennsylvania community who leased their land for gas drilling to understand how the exercise of property rights can undermine the commonwealth. I've also co-edited the volume "Approaches to Ethnography: Modes of Representation and Analysis in Participant Observation," and "Environment and Society: A Reader." I live in New York City with my wife and two sons.

Reviews

[ellen]

This is an exquisite work of modern ethnography. Jerolmack deftly integrates theory and praxis to create a fabulously engrossing and accessible book. The Global Pigeon is extremely readable, surprisingly applicable to the lives of urban dwellers (and likely many people in more rural areas as well). Many of the texts I read in my undergraduate sociology course changed the way that I looked at the world around me, but these were often in a more conceptual sense. Jerolmack's book, on the other hand, has changed the way I think about the pigeons I see every day at the train station, on my walk to work, and in parks near my office. As cheesy as it may sound, The Global Pigeon really revived my inner sociologist.

I'd recommend this book to anyone who has ever cursed rats with wings, fantasized about kicking a pigeon across Father Demo Square, or secretly wanted to keep pigeons on their roof. Regardless of how you may feel about these ubiquitous animals, this book will fascinate you -- and change the way you think about them and their place in the city. I encourage fellow amateur pigeon enthusiasts to document the pigeons around them on social media using #pigeonstagram.

[Anelyse]

I loved the topic of this book. I'm a big fan of urban birds, including pigeons, and I was excited to learn about the ways people have built relationships with them in distinct cultural contexts across the globe. The prose was readable, and the theoretical material was explained in a way that would be straightforward for non-sociologists to follow.

What I struggled with:
- I wanted to feel more connected with the lives, dramas, emotions, and stakes of the people depicted in the book. In most cases, readers only get to meet them in passing.

- I would have loved more focus on pigeons themselves (e.g., richer descriptions of their habits, personalities, preferences, etc.).

- I wasn't invested in solving the scholarly puzzles or problems that were presented. I thought the answers seemed fairly obvious from the outset, so their resolution didn't tickle my brain. In many chapters, I thought the findings were over-explained, as though to firmly mark one's academic territory.

[mimo]

Thoroughly enjoyed this work of ethnography. It blends the theoretical and concrete so well, and is an easy, accessible read that had me noticing pigeons where I live, along with the prominent signs forbidding people from feeding them. The contrasts and balance in the sites that Jerolmack chose are really good. Offers much to think about sociologically.

[Chase]

This book reads more like a textbook than a casual read, but as someone who already has an interest in the survival of feral animals (and who is also a pigeon fancier), I found this book very interesting. It is a bit long winded in parts, but I still found plenty of nuggets of wisdom worth getting the highlighter out for.

[Erok]

Super fun read. It felt like reading a travel journal mixed with an adventure novel at times, while at other times giving the intellectual gymnastics and deeper understanding of the world that you're looking for in non-fiction.

Despite the title, in addition to an introduction to the now fascinating world of pigeon racing, this book is really about humans. He's a great story teller, and basically shows, through the lives of folks he's met around the world, how we've influenced the species, and how they've influenced us. who knew that pigeons and coops were involved in the complex issues like gentrification?

[Jennifer Dudley]

Full review coming. This book is a much read and referenced part of my growing library of Avian and Pigeon books. From his earlier studies as an urban sociologist, Jerolmack has becomea Professor of Sociology and Environmental Studies at NYU. He also offers classes on human-animal relationships. Knowledge about these interactions has rapidly become an urgent matter, at least in New York City.
BY reading this book, I can now separate sociological aspects of pigeons in the city from all my other concerns.

[pattrice]

On page 13 of the introduction, noticing the author's citation pattern, I noted marginally, "wow, he is really only interested in what men think." Nothing in the remainder of the book altered that assessment.