From coexistence to the great divide: Repositioning Türkiye's stray dogs through a posthumanist lens

Abstract

This thesis explores how stray dogs in Türkiye are transformed from coexisting actors into excluded objects through anthropocentric legal changes and media discourses. Drawing on posthumanist theories and concepts within Science and Technology Studies (STS), the research seeks to develop more inclusive approaches to understanding human-nonhuman relations through the lens of stray dogs. It provides its theoretical grounding by combining Actor-Network Theory (ANT), which traces how complex networks composed of heterogeneous actors are constructed, with the concept of co-production, which emphasizes that knowledge is produced in value-laden and relational ways. By doing so, it sheds light on how, within the artificial dualisms produced by modern thought, stray dogs become paradoxical beings positioned both as symbols of a compassionate society and as a threat figure to public security. The study begins by challenging the nature of human exceptionalism, asking whether humans are merely a species or somehow special. This stance then portrays analysis of coexistence and coevolution, which situates dogs as a companion species with changing and valuable roles. Yet, this agency does not extend to all dogs, and stray dogs are systematically excluded and marginalized. Consideration of both global and local dynamics is essential to revealing the complex and multi-layered structure of the issue. By focusing specifically on being a stray dog in Türkiye, the thesis traces the historical and social transformation from the Ottoman period to the present. It reveals the unstable and ambiguous status of stray dogs as they move across the axes of East/West, tradition/modernity, utility/waste, and victimhood/threat. Across this process, the effects of legal regulations and policy approaches toward stray dogs are examined chronologically, ultimately identifying the 2024 amendment to the Animal Protection Law as a critical social rupture. The empirical core of the thesis consists of a media case study analyzing how this contested process is represented and legitimized in public discourse. Using ANT as a methodological framework, the study conducts a comparative analysis of three news websites with different ideological positions. The findings indicate that stray dogs are significantly passivized across all outlets, although the form of this passivation varies. In the pro-government outlet Sabah, dogs are represented as threats to public safety within a state-centered, vertical network dominated by central authority. Adopting a neutral position, BBC Türkçe addresses dogs as objects of administrative governance within a balanced, policy-oriented network. As an oppositional outlet, Cumhuriyet foregrounds the victimization of dogs within a resistance network led by opposition politicians and animal rights advocates. The analysis further concludes that media discourse reduces the debate to a misleading binary between children's safety and animals' right to life, thereby reinforcing Türkiye's already polarized social structure. In parallel, the scientific dimensions of the issue and expert actors are excluded from the debate. This exclusion, consequently, makes it more difficult to develop inclusive and long-term solutions grounded in co-production.