Codes of conduct: towards just coexistence in urban spaces

Codes of conduct: towards just coexistence in urban spaces | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article Codes of conduct: towards just coexistence in urban spaces Karolina Magdalena Lukasik, Maija Linturi, Tuomas Aivelo This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-5536404/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Published Journal Publication published 15 Jul, 2025 Read the published version in npj Urban Sustainability → Version 1 posted 11 You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Our study, comprising interviews and ethnographic observation, examines the human-rat conflict that arose in two urban allotment gardens in Helsinki as a case of multispecies negotiations. We view the rats’ presence and actions in the gardens as political claim-making, to which humans respond. Through these interactions, humans become attuned to the rats’ needs and build socio-ecological knowledge that is vital for more-than-human coexistence. As a result, the gardeners and the rats co-create an implicit code of conduct that defines the conditions of peaceful coexistence. We propose that the code of conduct framework is a useful tool in recognizing pathways towards solutions that achieve multispecies justice. Social science/Environmental studies Biological sciences/Ecology/Urban ecology Figures Figure 1 INTRODUCTION Our cities, while designed to suit primarily human needs, have numerous nonhuman inhabitants: from companion animals such as dogs and cats, through working animals like honeybees, to migratory birds, “feral” pigeons, and “pests” such as rats and cockroaches. As such, the cities function as sites where the human and the nonhuman meet, interact with, and affect each other. These entanglements are, for many humans, the primary way of experiencing nonhuman nature (Dunn et al., 2006). All urbanites – human and nonhuman alike – live “with and against expert designs” (Hinchliffe & Whatmore, 2006), co-creating a “living city”. Urban biodiversity and more-than-human entanglements in urban settings are gaining more attention across various disciplines, including the push for finding ways of fair and just coexistence that would also include the nonhumans (Barua & Sinha, 2017; Shingne & Reese, 2022). The emerging scholarship on multispecies justice (MSJ) is informed by diverse approaches and epistemological traditions (Celermajer et al., 2021), but the researchers and practitioners working with MSJ are united by its central radical claim: that justice should encompass all beings, regardless of their cognitive capacities, ability to communicate with humans, and relationalities (Tschakert et al., 2021). MSJ emphasizes the fact that we exist in relations with other beings, and those relations are situated in physical spaces that also affect us (Tschakert, 2022). From this follows the moral obligation to act justly towards and with more-than-human communities. Enacting MSJ demands that we recognize the agency and needs of nonhuman beings (Pineda-Pinto et al., 2023). Here we outline the multispecies negotiations involving rats and humans and view urban rats as active participants claiming rights in this process. We also address the need for frameworks of just coexistence with urban animals, and examine the more-than-human negotiations as political acts. Donaldson and Kymlicka (2011) present a political theory of animal rights that grants wild animals sovereignty, domesticated animals citizenship, and urban animals – whom they call liminal animals – the status of denizens. Liminal animals have adapted to humans, but they do not require human care the way domesticated species do; they, as the authors argue, live within human societies but lack reciprocal capacities to be granted citizenship. Donaldson and Kymlicka draw parallels with the existing denizen human communities (such as seasonal migrant workers) to outline what animal denizenship needs to entail: a human-animal relationship that has fewer responsibilities and obligations than this of citizenship, but nonetheless requires protection of the urban animals and recognition of their claim to urban spaces. In practice, animal denizenship requires security of residency (such as protecting nesting sites or using bird-safe glass to prevent avian denizens from crashing into windows), reciprocity of denizenship and anti-stigma safeguards. Reciprocity of denizenship posits that humans have certain responsibilities towards nonhuman animals, but in turn have the right to control their reproduction as well as use of shared space. Anti-stigma safeguards are legislative and educational measures that act against marginalizing and vilifying urban animals – and the spaces they inhabit. Donaldson and Kymlicka’s theory of animal rights has been criticized for not providing any means of enacting it (Brouwer, 2018). However, we argue that acts of liminal animal denizenship take place in our cities every day; that the status of urban animals is constantly negotiated. In the tradition of actor-network theory (Latour, 2007), agency is a relational property achieved through interactions. Animals claiming rights need not to do it with the explicit intention of becoming political actors – they affect humans and other animals and thus become co-creators of cities. But the places where humans and animals meet are often, as Wadiwel (2018) notes, conflict zones. Moreover, such interactions are in many cases lethal for the animals, while for humans they are merely an inconvenience. Overall, humans have more means – physical and legal – to assert their claims on urban spaces, often at the cost of nonhuman urbanites. Multispecies and posthumanist scholarship has been accused of “ethical passivity” that arises from ignoring the power differential (Arcari, 2019). Donaldson and Kymlicka (2011) take it into consideration, placing the onus of responsibility for urban animal welfare on humans. DeBondt, Wilde and Jaffe (2023) present how actions of Amsterdam rats can be seen as political claims-making: asserting their needs and appropriating urban spaces by burrowing, gnawing, moving, reproducing, and infecting. Through these acts, rats negotiate their belonging in the urban landscape and affect urban infrastructures. In turn, humans respond to the rat claims by either accepting or rejecting them; giving rats space or devising means to get rid of them. We propose that urban animal denizenship can arise spontaneously, through bottom-up negotiation processes, despite the lack of shared language or even understanding of intention in urban settings every day. To explore the systems created through such negotiations, we draw from Jevbratt’s theory of interspecies collaboration in art (2009). Jevbratt compares working with nonhuman animals to humans establishing protocols that are distributed, large-scale, and implicit forms of collaboration that maintain some self-organizing properties. Participation in a shared protocol need not be intentional. Jevbratt’s examples of human protocols include open-source software and the Internet, ongoing creations where users act on their needs and collaborate without speaking a common language – and often not speaking directly to one another at all. In her performance art, Jevbratt establishes similar protocols with her nonhuman collaborators. By viewing urban human-animal interactions as an ongoing creation of protocols, we can identify patterns of behavior that enable just coexistence. These behaviors can be internalized by both humans and nonhumans and become implicit, informal codes of conduct that are usually enacted without being verbalized (Von Essen, Drenthen & Bhardwaj, 2023). We approach here the negotiation of urban animal denizenship as a particular case of protocol: an implicitly co-created code of conduct that benefits all involved actors. To study how animal denizenship may arise in urban settings, we turn to the urban allotment gardens (UAGs) in the Helsinki metropolitan area. UAGs were first created in Europe during the rapid urbanization time in the 19th century to promote good health and self-sufficiency among the urbanites (Keshavarz et al., 2016; Poniży et al., 2021). This sentiment is not entirely lost, as the recent Covid-19 lockdowns have seen an increase in interest in urban gardening (Niala, 2021; Kacprzak & Szczepańska, 2024). In the present day, however, urban gardening is primarily a recreational activity, with self-grown produce seen as a nice bonus rather than a necessary addition to one’s own pantry. But even without the economic incentives, the ethos of self-sufficiency and DIY remains strong among the gardeners. UAGs are spaces designed for more-than-human interactions. They form part of urban greenery, but they are also places of community-building, thus playing an important socio-ecological role (Jokinen, 2016). The gardener communities build their local knowledge, situated in the material context of the garden (Delshammar, Partalidou, & Evans, 2016). While there is municipal governance over the gardens, the gardener communities are strongly affected by the social relations within them, and enacting or adjusting the rules is the responsibility of the community. This makes the UAGs unique sites for documenting the more-than-human negotiations and the possibility for emergence of just codes of conduct. We focus on the negotiations with urban rats. Rats are among the species Rose and van Dooren call our “unloved others” (2011): their presence rarely evokes aesthetic pleasure, and they remain invisible as objects of ethical consideration. Through the association of rats with waste, dirt, and disease, we react to our rodent neighbors with disgust (Edelman, 2002). Our reasons for choosing urban rats as fellow negotiators are twofold. Firstly, the existing MSJ and multispecies care literature tends to focus on animals that are “charismatic” (Lorimer, 2007), valued or otherwise commodified by humans (Arcari, Probyn-Rapsey & Singer, 2021). The unloved and awkward animals become thus marginalized within the very framework that promised them fairness. Our aim is to counter this process. Secondly, as the brown rat has adapted to living near human settlements around the globe, the question of just and sustainable human-rat coexistence is relevant to cities worldwide, except for the state of Alberta, Canada. Our study offers an outline of how a fair human-rat code of conduct could arise and look like. RESULTS The gardeners of Brunakärr UAG began to notice rats more in 2021, when the neighboring bus depot began undergoing construction. The rats were living in the holes in the concrete wall separating the depot from the garden, and the noise and destruction of their nests drove them towards the garden. The allotments provided a more welcoming environment than the nearby Central Park as there were fewer predators in the garden, and food was abundant. The process in Tali UAG followed a similar route: the construction of a tram line on the street alongside the garden caused the rats to move to the garden. To identify the gardens the respondents talked about, each quote will be followed by letters B (Brunakärr) or T (Tali). The interviewees showed certainty in knowing the reason rats came to the gardens and they had a strong notion of the former status quo being upset. Not taking into account during urban planning that the rats, birds and other animals nested in what was to become a construction site points to what Donaldson and Kymlicka describe as their invisibility (2011). In a sense, the rats arriving in the gardens were refugees. They claimed new territory because the one they used to live in was gone. The claims were made particularly visible in winter, due to the heavy snow on which rat trails was very noticeable. First, we present here the categories of rats claiming rights following the work of de Bondt, de Wilde and Jaffe (2023) and then human responses and, finally, how these process can be seen constituting human-rat code of conduct. Rats claiming rights “They [rats] don't bother me as long as I can't see them much. If there are a lot of them, then they are a nuisance, because then you start to see things like that over there all the time.” – Gardener 18 (T) Rat claims were most commonly concerning space as rats were seen in the allotments. Respondent 3 (B) pointed out a certain path that had become a “rat esplanade”, where rats were observed moving, seemingly unbothered by the human presence. They also recalled a “big, fat rat” running across their garden. Respondent 1 (B) recounted stories of other people sitting in their yards as rats ran across their feet, though they have not seen rats in the garden themselves. They also said that they noticed “corridors” on their allotment and thought it would have been terrible if those turned out to be rat paths. Respondent 6 talked about a neighboring cottage where the gardeners had a trail camera and observed rats wandering around. Respondent 12 (T) was particularly upset by the fact that the rats could be seen in the daytime. Rats were also claiming rights by foraging. Respondent 6 (B) told the story of how they buried apples only to find them unearthed and gnawed on. Others talked about noticing teeth marks on fruit and vegetables. In many of those stories, there was no certainty that a rat had been involved – and while some people expressed doubt about correct identification, others were insistent that the culprits had been rats. One person saw a rat on their compost and this encounter filled them with disgust, making a powerful impression. The rats were also foraging on food left for other animals: hedgehogs and birds. Some respondents said they resigned from bird feeding because they did not want to feed the rats. Others kept the bird feeders but tried to make them inaccessible to rats. A fast-food restaurant near the Brunakärr garden, and especially the restaurant’s visitors, provided an additional source of food for the rats – some Brunakärr respondents saw it as an important factor contributing to rat presence in the gardens. The allotments provided ample burrowing opportunities. The rats began building nests underneath the cottages. Respondent 7 (B) spoke of the possibility that during winter, rats and other rodents might also make nests inside the cottage. Another interviewee recalled the story of rats moving under the floor of their garden shed and eating seeds from a sack – finally the smell alerted the gardener to the occurrence and the floor had to be replaced. They said that since then they were able to tell if there was a rat nest nearby by smell. In response to these claims, the garden board required the gardeners to place wire mesh around the cottage foundations to prevent the nonhuman animals from nesting. Some gardeners took additional steps, like respondent 13 (B) who was shredding dry branches so that they wouldn’t be used as nesting material. As with foraging, here it was also not always clear whether the particular claims had been made by rats or other nonhuman residents of the gardens – but rats often came to mind as likely actors. One special case of claim-making in Brunakärr was linked to the unused or abandoned allotments and cottages colloquially known as “ghost houses”. Those spaces, where no humans would bother the rats, were considered unkempt and ugly and wild. One respondent expressed worry that, should an abandoned plot near their allotment be bought by a new gardener, the rats would have to move elsewhere – possibly to the respondent’s own allotment. Another told the story of such abandoned cottage that was demolished, and workers found dead rats in its walls. The “ghost houses” were ceded to rats and other nonhumans, but at the same time, they were associated with dirt and filth. While the garden rats likely gnawed on appliances, such occasions didn’t arise in the interviews. Respondent 2 (T) noticed that someone had been gnawing on a plastic water bowl left for the birds, but it turned out to be a hooded crow, not a rodent. Respondent 7 (B) mentioned rodents – likely mice – nesting in the duvets left inside the cottage for winter and “having a party” there. Quite surprisingly however, no stories of destroyed appliances were told. Claiming rights by reproduction also was brought up surprisingly rarely. Most people spoke of not attracting rats with food, as if the rats were appearing in the garden only from the outside. The large number of rats was attributed solely to the construction works near the gardens. Respondent 13 (B) recalled how their spouse saw rats mating in their allotment once. Only one interviewee, in the recollection of rat nest under the cottage floor, mentioned there were rat kittens in the nest. While many participants brought up the uncontrollability of large numbers of rats as a concern, in the context of the gardens it was mostly related to the influx of rats from elsewhere. Two participants claimed that several other people in the garden have become infected with Campylobacter after eating unwashed apples that fell to the ground – after, presumably, the rats had left the bacteria on the apples. One person even employed a strategy of never eating anything that fell to the ground for fear of zoonoses. While fear of infection was a recurring theme in the context of rats, not all respondents thought it was grounded as there were no way of verifying these claims. Two respondents even joked about how contacting a zoonosis would require “hanging out” with the rats. Most people were not able to name the potential diseases, but Campylobacter and Salmonella were mentioned. One respondent hypothesized that in the first months of the Covid-19 pandemic, people suspected the rats of being disease vectors. Human responses to rats Respondent 7 (B): “When you asked that was there any discussion. I think the assumption, the general assumption was that rats are not wanted here. There wasn't a big debate about why. I don't, at least I don't remember there being, having, I don't remember that there, I don't remember that anyone stood up and said let the rats be. Yeah.” Overall, the rats’ claims were not met with kindness, especially in Brunakärr. Respondent 4 (B): “We’ve had a rat crisis there.” Respondent 9 (T): “It was a bit of a rat chaos here”. Respondent 11 (B): “Of course, there are an awful lot of rats here, or maybe not a lot anymore. But in any case, at some point there was such a rat war here.” Respondent 13 (B): “And there are those who support such an intense war [against the rats], who are perhaps [laughing] related to some kind of fascists.” A group of especially worried gardeners gathered and demanded that the garden board pays for rodenticide baiting. However, the use of pesticides is against the garden regulations. Some gardeners thought that they were treated unfairly, and their worries were not taken seriously by the board; one even considered taking legal action. Eventually the board invited TA to give a talk about rat ecology and disease. According to many respondents, this had calmed the gardeners once they realized that the threat is not as serious as they previously believed. After the talk, the garden community voted whether to hire a pest management company, and the majority voted against it. However, not all agreed. The most worried gardeners decided to collect money among themselves and hire a pest management company that used electricity-based rat traps. Over the course of a year, the traps had killed ten rats, pricing each rat at 250 euros. In Tali, the gardeners took the matter in their own hands. Some gardeners formed a self-proclaimed “hunting association” and they devised traps themselves: they bought plastic basins and cut holes in them that looked like burrow entrances. Under each basin, a mechanical rat trap was placed, with candy as bait. On top of the traps, the gardeners would put heavy stones to make sure that birds wouldn’t get killed. The gardeners claimed to have trapped 30 rats during one summer. These traps are still in use in the garden, but many respondents doubted their effectiveness or even confessed they forgot about them. Others said that the traps often caught mice, but not rats. The Tali garden board had also invited TA for a talk, and it was recounted by many respondents. However, it did not seem to make such a strong impression as in Brunakärr – perhaps because the human-rat conflict was not as visible in Tali. We bring up these lethal means of control, even though they do not fit in the denizenship framework, for two reasons: to depict the events accurately, but also to highlight their limited efficiency, as shown by the numbers of rats trapped. Not all respondents agreed with them. Given the number of allotments in each garden, it becomes clear that only very few people participated in rat trapping, and other, less violent negotiation strategies were preferred. Respondent 11 (B): “Through the rat war, I somehow started to sympathize more with those rats. I thought it was so ridiculous to have people goofing over them. I began to wonder if there was any point in this. Let it [the rat] be!” Respondent 9 (T): “And then they put some stupid traps in there, but it's probably because people wouldn’t be quiet [about rats] so they wanted to do something, even if it wouldn’t achieve anything.” After rats made their claims, the garden boards changed their regulations – now all compost bins needed to be closed, to limit foraging opportunities, and wire mesh had to be put around the cottage foundations to prevent rats and other animals from nesting there. In this way, rats quite literally affected the local legislation. They also prompted the gardeners to invent new strategies of spotting claims: one placed a mix of sand and sawdust on the ground to see if there would be rat tracks in their allotment. Humans were not the only ones to refute rats’ claims, though. Several respondents told stories of stoats and even common weasels “controlling” the rodents in the garden area, even though rats rarely are part of common weasel diet. Although it is illegal to let companion animals roam freely in the gardens, two respondents spoke in a positive manner about the free-roaming cats as they would repel rats and mice. Another respondent was asked to give used cat litter so that its smell would function as a repellent. In Brunakärr, one person mentioned the recent appearance of hawks in the garden and hoped that they would feed on rats. Another gardener witnessed a magpie feeding on a dead rat. It is important to note that only one person claimed to actively hate rats. Overall, the gardeners were quite neutral about the rats. They mostly worried about rats intruding in their spaces. Some accepted the rats in the corners of their allotments, or outside the allotments but in the gardens. Respondent 1 (B): “So yeah, as soon as it's a little further over there, it doesn't bother me at all. But then, when there were those corridors here, and then I thought that whatever animal was there (...) it would have been terrible for me to know that it was a rat's nest there.” Respondent 5 (B): “I don't know if they [rats] do anything. People just find them disgusting. I don't know if they do any harm. So, I don't know. (…) It may be that they do, but they don't bother me if they're here, as long as they don't come very close. I think they can be here.” Respondent 7 (B): “I'm not quite sure how I feel about rats. (…) I guess my condition is that if my projects are left alone [by the rats], then I can leave everything else alone. We're not going to kill any animals here.” Respondent 10 (B): “Many people are of the opinion that you shouldn't even put rat traps. That the rats have every right to live here as much as we do. And then I feel a little guilty. I usually have a rat trap because there has been a lot of rats here. And it annoyed me, not now, but [laughs] when you're sitting inside and there's a rat standing there on the stairs and trying to get in, [shudders] I feel like, I don't want you to go in. There must be some limit, I have one [trap] right next to the door, a bit helpless, yes, but in any case, it's like a little bit of a sign to them that it's not good for them here, stay somewhere else, but not right next to the door. Yeah.” The new human-rat code After the implementation of closed composts and wire mesh, the human-rat conflict subsided. The rats were, and still are, present in the gardens; they still have their paths, and they still are given reign over abandoned allotments. The food that has fallen to the ground is ceded to them, as pictured by the person who decided not to eat it. The new human-rat code of conduct appears to center sharing space: the rats are allowed as long as they are not seen, and as long as they do not encroach upon human spaces (cottages, outdoor dining areas and such). In turn, the humans withdraw from lethal means of movement and reproduction control. The human actions in this current status quo reflect the strategies allowed in Donaldson and Kymlicka’s denizenship project: physical barriers (wire mesh blocking the way under the cottages), disincentives (repellents such as cat litter), limited food supply (closed compost bins), habitat corridors (areas with overgrown vegetation leading to nearby parks) and safe zones (abandoned or unused allotments). In Donaldson’s and Kymlicka’s understanding of animal denizenship, the responsibility of humans towards other animals does not extend to affecting the predator-prey relationships between nonhuman species. In this framework, ensuing a safe zone for a species does not require that said species is protected from being preyed upon. In both gardens, the garden board members invited TA to give talk, which would be an example of anti-stigma safeguard through education. Whereas not everyone was convinced by the talk, it had a significant impact on the garden communities. In Brunakärr, the talk affected the choice to vote against lethal pest control methods. The view of rats as filthy plague-bearers was, to some extent, replaced by a more neutral one. The interviews with humans and our own observations from the gardens provide a glimpse into rat agency at play. Some gardeners emphasized the rats’ intelligence and their ability to avoid traps. In the case of respondent 10 (B), there was an explicit wish to communicate with the rats how close they are allowed to get. At the end of our study, the rats are still very much present in the gardens. They have found new nesting sites, and they still enjoy the abundance of food. Their adjustments to avoid predation also help them to adapt to human temporality: they use the garden at dusk, where humans are less likely to be present. The current code of conduct is best illustrated by the words of respondent 7 (B): as long as the rats leave the gardener’s project alone, they too will be left alone. But the condition for the rats is not particularly strict, as in practice they can burrow, forage and move in the garden. They only need to make themselves – and their traces – as invisible to humans as they can. There is plenty of rat experience we have no access to, therefore our understanding of the code of conduct on their part is limited. But at the current moment it appears to be successful – humans and rats have stated their needs and found ways of acting accordingly. DISCUSSION There used to be a status quo between humans and rats in the allotment gardens, but its interruption – the disturbance of rat burrows by the construction work – forced the rats to find new spaces and required establishing a new way of coexisting. As depicted by the readiness to use lethal traps, this process was by no means a peaceful one, particularly at first. The garden became a conflict zone. However, we are considering the processes in Brunakärr and Tali as success stories, because ultimately, nonviolent strategies and human attunement to rat needs were the drivers behind the new, peaceful code of conduct. The gardeners became attuned to rat presence by noticing their traces, trails, and marks. Hinchliffe and colleagues (2005) frame the traces that nonhuman animals leave in the city as “writing”: leaving behind material messages that are later interpreted by humans or other nonhumans. Such writing is multisensory – it could take the form of leaving visible paw prints, scent-marking, or altering the texture of an object by gnawing. By engaging multiple senses, reading those messages builds embodied knowledge. This is reflected in the quote from Respondent 18 (T), who was worried that once she notices rat presence, she would be more aware of how common it is – she would become attuned to it. Similarly, the gardener who noticed a rat nest under their garden shed became attuned to rat scents. Nonetheless through the multispecies negotiations, the gardeners became more attuned to rat writing. The embodied ecological knowledge of rat movements could be seen in the detailed accounts of human-rat encounters and the understanding of causal relationships between the events of the conflict. Enacting MSJ through coexistence with urban animals is a process, not an endpoint. It requires constant adaptation, which relies on attunement and noticing the changes in the environment and the behavior of others. Sometimes the strategies implemented by humans fail because they have outlived their usefulness – for example, an animal has adapted to overcome the barrier raised by humans – or because the circumstances have changed. The old composting strategy had served the gardeners well enough until the construction work began. A new strategy arose in response to the change in circumstances. Strategy failure indicates the need to readjust the protocol. It is important to note that small-scale adjustments occur all the time, like in the case of the gardener who tried burying their uneaten apples, but then they noticed that apples attracted rats. Establishing a more-than-human protocol requires consistency on the humans’ part. We witnessed numerous inconsistencies in the human-rat interactions in the gardens: not all cottages were surrounded by wire mesh and not everyone ensured that food was hidden away from the rats. As Brookshire (2022) observes, animals encountering humans often have little clue what to expect: while some people will act in a friendly manner, others will try to scare or hurt the animal. Such inconsistencies could arise from inattentiveness, insufficient motivation to change one’s behavior (as when one gardener deemed changing their composting system as too laborious), or lack of knowledge about rats (for example, not realizing that rats could feed on a bag of seeds). Recognizing what constitutes a (non-preferred) welcoming message for a rat also requires attunement and a shift of perspective to see how the human and the rat become entangled (Despret, 2013). This leads to a paradox: attunement can be a source of dread, when the presence of rats becomes noticeable, but it is also necessary to communicate with rats effectively. Throughout the field work and in the conversations with the gardeners, we have noticed that participation in the study became a motivation and encouragement for attunement. The respondents were contacting us by email to inform us about the animals they have seen in the gardens; one person observed three animal species they have never noticed in the garden before. We contributed to the creation of garden protocols in our own ways by participating in everyday life in the gardens as KL and ML did, or by giving a talk about rats and pathogens as TA did. As the gardeners, rats living in the gardens are also individuals with different life situations. Thus, they are not always attuned in same ways to gardeners’ messages and otherwise accepted barriers are sometimes contested. As von Essen and colleagues point out (2023), the responses to humans’ actions will be mediated by an animal’s internal and external contexts, including its health status and life cycle (for example, whether it’s brooding), the time of the year, the weather conditions. We have observed these situations in the UAGs as rats would occasionally be spotted even in the best rat-proofed plots. However, we view them not as failures, but as instances of ongoing dynamic negotiations and animals countering human responses. They highlight the fact that rats are resisting some of the terms laid out by humans. Accepting that human responses to rats can be contested – and that humans may need to adapt – is crucial for the denizenship project as it is a form of recognizing rat agency and needs in the negotiations. Similarly, understanding that local weather and other external factors will affect rat behavior is conducive to adapting the protocol to the changing conditions. Our study has its limitations. First, UAGs are quite unique as urban spaces. They are designed for more-than-human interactions. Many of the dangers to urban animals – such as car traffic, predators, or noise pollution – are either absent or limited in comparison to other urban spaces. One could argue that UAGs constitute, if not safe zones, then safer zones for urban animals. However, UAGs are still urban spaces strongly affected by the near environment, as reflected by the construction work that triggered the human-rat conflict. It is also their specific focus on more-than-human interactions that makes them valuable research sites to study how said interactions become protocols. Secondly, the respondents in this study represented a rather homogenous group of white, middle class, predominantly retired Finnish citizens, which do not reflect the full diversity of people living in Helsinki, and thus likely the scope and variety of attitudes and behavior towards urban animals. Our current work aims to address this limitation by collecting data from other, more diverse urban gardener communities. Whenever humans and non-humans interact, the process of claim-making and negotiating takes place. More often than not, we participate in it without realizing that we are negotiating – or that the animals are active participants in this process, as was the case of the urban gardeners and rats. We propose the framework of negotiated codes of conduct as a tool to recognize pathways towards solutions that achieve multispecies justice. Our study shows that attunement to urban animals becomes embodied socio-ecological knowledge and can lead to finding just ways of coexistence. As reflected in one of the interviews, the idea of messaging with rats (or other species) can arise spontaneously in local communities. We also note the importance of consistency in human behavior towards nonhuman neighbors. Here, too, the code of conduct framework is of potential value: we suggest that explicitly viewing our own behaviors as enacting (or countering) protocols of just coexistence rather than unrelated episodes can support adherence to the code, and ultimately, contribution to multispecies justice. METHODS The project combined semi-structured interviews with gardeners and camera observations in the plots within allotment gardens. Throughout the five-month field work period (May 2023-September 2023), KL and ML regularly visited the gardens and had informal conversations with the gardeners, which provided additional context and information for this study. The findings of this paper are based on the interviews as well as observations and field notes from the gardens. The interviews and analysis were conducted according to the principles of grounded theory (Charmaz, 2006; Charmaz & Thornberg, 2021). We have conducted 21 interviews with overall 22 individuals (in one case, we interviewed a couple). The interviews were semi-structured and probed four clusters of themes: background and previous experience with nonhuman nature; the use of the garden and plants; the social relations in the garden and between the garden in the city; the human-nonhuman animal interactions and experiences in the garden. On average the interviews lasted 2 hours, with the longest lasting over 4 hours and the shortest about 1 hour. Rather than directly asking about more-than-human conflicts, the interviewers asked about situations involving nonhuman animals and what happened next. Thus the conflicts were viewed as processes embedded in context rather than solitary instances. The participant recruitment was done using a variety of techniques. Firstly, the study was advertised through garden community communication channels. In the case of Brunakärr, the study was also described during the opening of the gardening season 2023. When these methods proved insufficient, participants were recruited through snowballing. Some participants were recruited by randomly asking. RESEARCH SITES Brunakärr/Ruskeasuo UAG is the oldest of such gardens in Helsinki, established in 1918 and remaining in its original location. While initially the garden was located on the outskirts of the city, today it finds itself in a busy area, near the communication hub Pasila and the Central Park. The garden remains the only Swedish-speaking garden in Finland, providing space for a linguistic minority. In its early days, the purpose of the garden was to enable people to grow their own produce in the lean post-war period. Currently its 117 plots are primarily recreational spaces for the Swedish-speaking community as well as the Finnish-speaking gardeners. The size of the plots varies from 100m2 to 700m2, and since 2015 the cottages built on plots need to adhere to predefined standards and a color scheme. The plots are accessed by alleys. There is also a meeting house on the premises as well as a communal sauna with showers. Running water is available only throughout the summer, though some gardeners adjust their cottages to make them habitable also in wintertime. The land on which the garden is standing belongs to the city of Helsinki, although the gardeners own their cottages, plants, and the lease to each plot. The city renews the lease each X years, and as this study took place during pre-renewal season, many gardeners expressed anxiety about Brunakärr’s future. Legally, the space is classified as a park, and as such it must adhere to city regulations. The types of plants that can be planted are delineated, and there is effort to remove invasive species, such as the Rugosa rose, large-leaved lupine and the Himalayan balsam. The shrubs and trees cannot be taller than X and Xcm, respectively, and the garden board conducts regular inspections to make sure the gardeners prune their plants. The city regulations for UAGs require the gardeners to use nets against rabbits. Tali UAG was established in 1936, in western Helsinki, and is flanked from the south with a recreational forest growing along the seaside. From the north it is flanked by one of Helsinki’s major roads. Similarly to Brunakärr, Tali was intended to be a space where people could grow their own produce, but in the postwar period, the garden was gradually equipped with electricity and running water to enable its recreational use. The garden also has its meeting house and own saunas and is a short walk away from a golf field and sports facilities. Tali comprises 241 plots. Both gardens are characterized by long history as well as strong sense of identity and community. They have their own flags, songs and celebrations. Many of the plots have been leased by multiple generations of the same families. The cost of lease and upkeep is significant, as it includes cottage maintenance. The plots in these gardens are highly sought after. Due to these socioeconomic conditions, the gardener population in both Brunakärr and Tali skews towards white Finnish upper middle-class citizens, often retired. Declarations Author Contribution KL conceptualized the study with the help of ML and TA. KL and ML collected and analyzed the data. KL wrote the main manuscript text and prepared figure 1. TA and ML reviewed and revised the manuscript. References Arcari, P. (2019). ‘Dynamic’non-human animals in theories of practice: views from the subaltern. Social practices and dynamic non-humans: Nature, materials and technologies , 63-86. Arcari, P., Probyn-Rapsey, F., & Singer, H. (2021). Where species don’t meet: Invisibilized animals, urban nature and city limits. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 4(3), 940-965. https://doi.org/10.1177/2514848620939870 Barua, M., & Sinha, A. (2017). Animating the urban: an ethological and geographical conversation. Social & Cultural Geography , 20 (8), 1160–1180. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2017.1409908 Brookshire, B. (2022). Pests: How Humans Create Animal Villains. HarperCollins. p. 218. Brouwer, D. D. Z. (2018). Neither Wild nor Domesticated: Positioning Liminal Animals through Labour Rights (Master's thesis, Queen's University (Canada)). Byers, K. A., Lee, M. J., Patrick, D. M., & Himsworth, C. G. (2019). Rats about town: a systematic review of rat movement in urban ecosystems. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution , 7 , 13. Celermajer, D., Schlosberg, D., Rickards, L., Stewart-Harawira, M., Thaler, M., Tschakert, P., … Winter, C. (2020). Multispecies justice: theories, challenges, and a research agenda for environmental politics. Environmental Politics , 30 (1–2), 119–140. https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2020.1827608 Charmaz, K. (2006). Constructing grounded theory: A practical guide through qualitative analysis . Sage. Charmaz, K., & Thornberg, R. (2021). The pursuit of quality in grounded theory. Qualitative research in psychology , 18(3), 305-327. de Bondt, H., de Wilde, M., & Jaffe, R. (2023). Rats claiming rights? More‐than‐human acts of denizenship in Amsterdam. PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review , 46 (1), 67-81. Delshammar, T., Partalidou, M., & Evans, R. (2016). Building trust and social skills in urban allotment gardens. In Urban allotment gardens in Europe (pp. 342-363). Routledge. Despret, V. (2013). Responding Bodies and Partial Affinities in Human–Animal Worlds . Theory, Culture & Society , 30(7-8), 51-76. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276413496852 Donaldson, S., & Kymlicka, W. (2011). Zoopolis: A political theory of animal rights . Oxford University Press, USA. Dunn, R. R., Gavin, M. C., Sanchez, M. C., & Solomon, J. N. (2006). The pigeon paradox: dependence of global conservation on urban nature. Conservation biology , 1814-1816. Edelman, B. (2002). ‘Rats Are People, Too!’ Rat-Human Relations Re-Rated. Anthropology Today 18(3). Hinchliffe, S., Kearnes, M. B., Degen, M., & Whatmore, S. (2005). Urban wild things: a cosmopolitical experiment. Environment and planning D: Society and Space , 23 (5), 643-658. Hinchliffe, S., & Whatmore, S. (2006). Living cities: Towards a politics of conviviality. Science as Culture , 15 (2), 123–138. https://doi.org/10.1080/09505430600707988 Jevbratt, L. (2009). Zoomorph-enabling interspecies collaboration. ISEA, Belfast, UK, http://zoomorph. org . Jokinen, A. (2016). Social-ecological memory in allotment gardens in Tampere, Finland. In Urban allotment gardens in Europe (pp. 130-131). Routledge. Kacprzak, E., & Szczepańska, M. (2024). Will Allotment Gardening Save Us Again? Allotment Gardens during a COVID-19 Pandemic in a City with a Shortage of Plots. Sustainability , 16 (5), 1981. Keshavarz, N., Bell, S., Zilans, A., Hursthouse, A., Voigt, A., Hobbelink, A., ... & Gogová, Z. (2016). A history of urban gardens in Europe. In Urban allotment gardens in Europe (pp. 8-32). Routledge. Latour, B. (2007). Reassembling the social: An introduction to actor-network-theory . Oup Oxford. Lorimer, J. (2007). Nonhuman charisma. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space , 25 (5), 911-932. Niala, J. C. (2021). Dig for vitality: UK urban allotments as a health-promoting response to COVID-19. Cities & Health , 5 (sup1), S227-S231. Pineda-Pinto, M., Kennedy, C., Collier, M., Cooper, C., O’Donnell, M., Nulty, F., & Castaneda, N. R. (2023). Finding justice in wild, novel ecosystems: A review through a multispecies lens. Urban Forestry & Urban Greening , 83 , 127902. Poniży, L., Latkowska, M. J., Breuste, J., Hursthouse, A., Joimel, S., Külvik, M., ... & Szczepańska, M. (2021). The rich diversity of urban allotment gardens in Europe: contemporary trends in the context of historical, socio-economic and legal conditions. Sustainability , 13 (19), 11076. Rose, D., & van Dooren, T. (2011). Unloved others: Death of the disregarded in the time of extinctions. Australian Humanities Review , 50, 1–4. https://doi.org/10.22459/AHR.50.2011 Shingne, M. C., & Reese, L. A. (2022). Animals in the city: Wither the human-animal divide. Journal of Urban Affairs , 44 (2), 114-136. Tschakert, P., Schlosberg, D., Celermajer, D., Rickards, L., Winter, C., Thaler, M., ... & Verlie, B. (2021). Multispecies justice: Climate‐just futures with, for and beyond humans. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change , 12 (2), e699. Tschakert, P. (2022). More-than-human solidarity and multispecies justice in the climate crisis. Environmental Politics , 31 (2), 277-296. Von Essen, E., Drenthen, M., & Bhardwaj, M. (2023). How fences communicate interspecies codes of conduct in the landscape: toward bidirectional communication?. Wildlife Biology , e01146. Wadiwel, D. (2018). Chicken harvesting machine: Animal labor, resistance, and the time of production. South Atlantic Quarterly , 117 (3), 527-549. Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Published Journal Publication published 15 Jul, 2025 Read the published version in npj Urban Sustainability → Version 1 posted Editorial decision: Revision requested 15 Mar, 2025 Reviews received at journal 27 Feb, 2025 Reviewers agreed at journal 24 Feb, 2025 Reviewers agreed at journal 23 Feb, 2025 Reviews received at journal 21 Feb, 2025 Reviewers agreed at journal 19 Feb, 2025 Reviewers agreed at journal 19 Feb, 2025 Reviewers invited by journal 20 Jan, 2025 Editor assigned by journal 06 Dec, 2024 Submission checks completed at journal 02 Dec, 2024 First submitted to journal 27 Nov, 2024 You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. 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Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-5536404","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":390143842,"identity":"7c14356d-fd0c-4351-8273-ac0e9c5d8031","order_by":0,"name":"Karolina Magdalena Lukasik","email":"data:image/png;base64,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","orcid":"","institution":"University of Helsinki","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Karolina","middleName":"Magdalena","lastName":"Lukasik","suffix":""},{"id":390143843,"identity":"b8aa8d9e-09ae-4482-9ed6-f53f0c041e5d","order_by":1,"name":"Maija Linturi","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Maija","middleName":"","lastName":"Linturi","suffix":""},{"id":390143844,"identity":"3ace685f-a063-452c-be38-b02b5edbb99d","order_by":2,"name":"Tuomas Aivelo","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Leiden University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Tuomas","middleName":"","lastName":"Aivelo","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2024-11-27 14:53:18","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-5536404/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-5536404/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[{"content":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s42949-025-00232-w","type":"published","date":"2025-07-15T15:57:36+00:00"}],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":71928930,"identity":"a2251dd2-26ac-4ab3-aa84-da72c52de955","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2024-12-19 20:04:13","extension":"png","order_by":1,"title":"Figure 1","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":416712,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eMap of Helsinki with marked research sites (T – Tali; B – Brunakärr)\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"floatimage1.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-5536404/v1/e8bb5e7a31305a71c4121a57.png"},{"id":87219439,"identity":"3100b3a9-ee00-4a4f-9425-8613ea940895","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-07-21 16:04:55","extension":"pdf","order_by":0,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":751511,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"manuscript.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-5536404/v1/b8768777-3b27-43fb-b727-83ff8db29d23.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"No competing interests reported.","formattedTitle":"Codes of conduct: towards just coexistence in urban spaces","fulltext":[{"header":"INTRODUCTION","content":"\u003cp\u003eOur cities, while designed to suit primarily human needs, have numerous nonhuman inhabitants: from companion animals such as dogs and cats, through working animals like honeybees, to migratory birds, \u0026ldquo;feral\u0026rdquo; pigeons, and \u0026ldquo;pests\u0026rdquo; such as rats and cockroaches. As such, the cities function as sites where the human and the nonhuman meet, interact with, and affect each other. These entanglements are, for many humans, the primary way of experiencing nonhuman nature (Dunn et al., 2006). All urbanites \u0026ndash; human and nonhuman alike \u0026ndash; live \u0026ldquo;with and against expert designs\u0026rdquo; (Hinchliffe \u0026amp; Whatmore, 2006), co-creating a \u0026ldquo;living city\u0026rdquo;. Urban biodiversity and more-than-human entanglements in urban settings are gaining more attention across various disciplines, including the push for finding ways of fair and just coexistence that would also include the nonhumans (Barua \u0026amp; Sinha, 2017; Shingne \u0026amp; Reese, 2022).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe emerging scholarship on multispecies justice (MSJ) is informed by diverse approaches and epistemological traditions (Celermajer et al., 2021), but the researchers and practitioners working with MSJ are united by its central radical claim: that justice should encompass all beings, regardless of their cognitive capacities, ability to communicate with humans, and relationalities (Tschakert et al., 2021). MSJ emphasizes the fact that we exist in relations with other beings, and those relations are situated in physical spaces that also affect us (Tschakert, 2022). From this follows the moral obligation to act justly towards and with more-than-human communities. Enacting MSJ demands that we recognize the agency and needs of nonhuman beings (Pineda-Pinto et al., 2023). Here we outline the multispecies negotiations involving rats and humans and view urban rats as active participants claiming rights in this process. We also address the need for frameworks of just coexistence with urban animals, and examine the more-than-human negotiations as political acts.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eDonaldson and Kymlicka (2011) present a political theory of animal rights that grants wild animals sovereignty, domesticated animals citizenship, and urban animals \u0026ndash; whom they call liminal animals \u0026ndash; the status of denizens. Liminal animals have adapted to humans, but they do not require human care the way domesticated species do; they, as the authors argue, live within human societies but lack reciprocal capacities to be granted citizenship. Donaldson and Kymlicka draw parallels with the existing denizen human communities (such as seasonal migrant workers) to outline what animal denizenship needs to entail: a human-animal relationship that has fewer responsibilities and obligations than this of citizenship, but nonetheless requires protection of the urban animals and recognition of their claim to urban spaces. In practice, animal denizenship requires security of residency (such as protecting nesting sites or using bird-safe glass to prevent avian denizens from crashing into windows), reciprocity of denizenship and anti-stigma safeguards. Reciprocity of denizenship posits that humans have certain responsibilities towards nonhuman animals, but in turn have the right to control their reproduction as well as use of shared space. Anti-stigma safeguards are legislative and educational measures that act against marginalizing and vilifying urban animals \u0026ndash; and the spaces they inhabit.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eDonaldson and Kymlicka\u0026rsquo;s theory of animal rights has been criticized for not providing any means of enacting it (Brouwer, 2018). However, we argue that acts of liminal animal denizenship take place in our cities every day; that the status of urban animals is constantly negotiated. In the tradition of actor-network theory (Latour, 2007), agency is a relational property achieved through interactions. Animals claiming rights need not to do it with the explicit intention of becoming political actors \u0026ndash; they affect humans and other animals and thus become co-creators of cities. But the places where humans and animals meet are often, as Wadiwel (2018) notes, conflict zones. Moreover, such interactions are in many cases lethal for the animals, while for humans they are merely an inconvenience. Overall, humans have more means \u0026ndash; physical and legal \u0026ndash; to assert their claims on urban spaces, often at the cost of nonhuman urbanites. Multispecies and posthumanist scholarship has been accused of \u0026ldquo;ethical passivity\u0026rdquo; that arises from ignoring the power differential (Arcari, 2019). Donaldson and Kymlicka (2011) take it into consideration, placing the onus of responsibility for urban animal welfare on humans.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eDeBondt, Wilde and Jaffe (2023) present how actions of Amsterdam rats can be seen as political claims-making: asserting their needs and appropriating urban spaces by burrowing, gnawing, moving, reproducing, and infecting. Through these acts, rats negotiate their belonging in the urban landscape and affect urban infrastructures. In turn, humans respond to the rat claims by either accepting or rejecting them; giving rats space or devising means to get rid of them.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eWe propose that urban animal denizenship can arise spontaneously, through bottom-up negotiation processes, despite the lack of shared language or even understanding of intention in urban settings every day. To explore the systems created through such negotiations, we draw from Jevbratt\u0026rsquo;s theory of interspecies collaboration in art (2009). Jevbratt compares working with nonhuman animals to humans establishing protocols that are distributed, large-scale, and implicit forms of collaboration that maintain some self-organizing properties. Participation in a shared protocol need not be intentional. Jevbratt\u0026rsquo;s examples of human protocols include open-source software and the Internet, ongoing creations where users act on their needs and collaborate without speaking a common language \u0026ndash; and often not speaking directly to one another at all. In her performance art, Jevbratt establishes similar protocols with her nonhuman collaborators. By viewing urban human-animal interactions as an ongoing creation of protocols, we can identify patterns of behavior that enable just coexistence. These behaviors can be internalized by both humans and nonhumans and become implicit, informal codes of conduct that are usually enacted without being verbalized (Von Essen, Drenthen \u0026amp; Bhardwaj, 2023). We approach here the negotiation of urban animal denizenship as a particular case of protocol: an implicitly co-created code of conduct that benefits all involved actors.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eTo study how animal denizenship may arise in urban settings, we turn to the urban allotment gardens (UAGs) in the Helsinki metropolitan area. UAGs were first created in Europe during the rapid urbanization time in the 19th century to promote good health and self-sufficiency among the urbanites (Keshavarz et al., 2016; Poniży et al., 2021). This sentiment is not entirely lost, as the recent Covid-19 lockdowns have seen an increase in interest in urban gardening (Niala, 2021; Kacprzak \u0026amp; Szczepańska, 2024). In the present day, however, urban gardening is primarily a recreational activity, with self-grown produce seen as a nice bonus rather than a necessary addition to one\u0026rsquo;s own pantry. But even without the economic incentives, the ethos of self-sufficiency and DIY remains strong among the gardeners.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eUAGs are spaces designed for more-than-human interactions. They form part of urban greenery, but they are also places of community-building, thus playing an important socio-ecological role (Jokinen, 2016). The gardener communities build their local knowledge, situated in the material context of the garden (Delshammar, Partalidou, \u0026amp; Evans, 2016). While there is municipal governance over the gardens, the gardener communities are strongly affected by the social relations within them, and enacting or adjusting the rules is the responsibility of the community. This makes the UAGs unique sites for documenting the more-than-human negotiations and the possibility for emergence of just codes of conduct.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eWe focus on the negotiations with urban rats. Rats are among the species Rose and van Dooren call our \u0026ldquo;unloved others\u0026rdquo; (2011): their presence rarely evokes aesthetic pleasure, and they remain invisible as objects of ethical consideration. Through the association of rats with waste, dirt, and disease, we react to our rodent neighbors with disgust (Edelman, 2002). Our reasons for choosing urban rats as fellow negotiators are twofold. Firstly, the existing MSJ and multispecies care literature tends to focus on animals that are \u0026ldquo;charismatic\u0026rdquo; (Lorimer, 2007), valued or otherwise commodified by humans (Arcari, Probyn-Rapsey \u0026amp; Singer, 2021). The unloved and awkward animals become thus marginalized within the very framework that promised them fairness. Our aim is to counter this process. Secondly, as the brown rat has adapted to living near human settlements around the globe, the question of just and sustainable human-rat coexistence is relevant to cities worldwide, except for the state of Alberta, Canada. Our study offers an outline of how a fair human-rat code of conduct could arise and look like.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"RESULTS","content":"\u003cp\u003eThe gardeners of Brunak\u0026auml;rr UAG began to notice rats more in 2021, when the neighboring bus depot began undergoing construction. The rats were living in the holes in the concrete wall separating the depot from the garden, and the noise and destruction of their nests drove them towards the garden. The allotments provided a more welcoming environment than the nearby Central Park as there were fewer predators in the garden, and food was abundant. The process in Tali UAG followed a similar route: the construction of a tram line on the street alongside the garden caused the rats to move to the garden. To identify the gardens the respondents talked about, each quote will be followed by letters B (Brunak\u0026auml;rr) or T (Tali).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe interviewees showed certainty in knowing the reason rats came to the gardens and they had a strong notion of the former status quo being upset. Not taking into account during urban planning that the rats, birds and other animals nested in what was to become a construction site points to what Donaldson and Kymlicka describe as their invisibility (2011). In a sense, the rats arriving in the gardens were refugees. They claimed new territory because the one they used to live in was gone. The claims were made particularly visible in winter, due to the heavy snow on which rat trails was very noticeable. First, we present here the categories of rats claiming rights following the work of de Bondt, de Wilde and Jaffe (2023) and then human responses and, finally, how these process can be seen constituting human-rat code of conduct.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRats claiming rights\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;They [rats] don\u0026apos;t bother me as long as I can\u0026apos;t see them much. If there are a lot of them, then they are a nuisance, because then you start to see things like that over there all the time.\u0026rdquo; \u0026ndash; Gardener 18 (T)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRat claims were most commonly concerning space as rats were seen in the allotments. Respondent 3 (B) pointed out a certain path that had become a \u0026ldquo;rat esplanade\u0026rdquo;, where rats were observed moving, seemingly unbothered by the human presence. They also recalled a \u0026ldquo;big, fat rat\u0026rdquo; running across their garden. Respondent 1 (B) recounted stories of other people sitting in their yards as rats ran across their feet, though they have not seen rats in the garden themselves. They also said that they noticed \u0026ldquo;corridors\u0026rdquo; on their allotment and thought it would have been terrible if those turned out to be rat paths. Respondent 6 talked about a neighboring cottage where the gardeners had a trail camera and observed rats wandering around. Respondent 12 (T) was particularly upset by the fact that the rats could be seen in the daytime.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRats were also claiming rights by foraging. Respondent 6 (B) told the story of how they buried apples only to find them unearthed and gnawed on. Others talked about noticing teeth marks on fruit and vegetables. In many of those stories, there was no certainty that a rat had been involved \u0026ndash; and while some people expressed doubt about correct identification, others were insistent that the culprits had been rats. One person saw a rat on their compost and this encounter filled them with disgust, making a powerful impression. The rats were also foraging on food left for other animals: hedgehogs and birds. Some respondents said they resigned from bird feeding because they did not want to feed the rats. Others kept the bird feeders but tried to make them inaccessible to rats. A fast-food restaurant near the Brunak\u0026auml;rr garden, and especially the restaurant\u0026rsquo;s visitors, provided an additional source of food for the rats \u0026ndash; some Brunak\u0026auml;rr respondents saw it as an important factor contributing to rat presence in the gardens.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe allotments provided ample burrowing opportunities. The rats began building nests underneath the cottages. Respondent 7 (B) spoke of the possibility that during winter, rats and other rodents might also make nests inside the cottage. Another interviewee recalled the story of rats moving under the floor of their garden shed and eating seeds from a sack \u0026ndash; finally the smell alerted the gardener to the occurrence and the floor had to be replaced. They said that since then they were able to tell if there was a rat nest nearby by smell. In response to these claims, the garden board required the gardeners to place wire mesh around the cottage foundations to prevent the nonhuman animals from nesting. Some gardeners took additional steps, like respondent 13 (B) who was shredding dry branches so that they wouldn\u0026rsquo;t be used as nesting material. As with foraging, here it was also not always clear whether the particular claims had been made by rats or other nonhuman residents of the gardens \u0026ndash; but rats often came to mind as likely actors.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOne special case of claim-making in Brunak\u0026auml;rr was linked to the unused or abandoned allotments and cottages colloquially known as \u0026ldquo;ghost houses\u0026rdquo;. Those spaces, where no humans would bother the rats, were considered unkempt and ugly and wild. One respondent expressed worry that, should an abandoned plot near their allotment be bought by a new gardener, the rats would have to move elsewhere \u0026ndash; possibly to the respondent\u0026rsquo;s own allotment. Another told the story of such abandoned cottage that was demolished, and workers found dead rats in its walls. The \u0026ldquo;ghost houses\u0026rdquo; were ceded to rats and other nonhumans, but at the same time, they were associated with dirt and filth.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhile the garden rats likely gnawed on appliances, such occasions didn\u0026rsquo;t arise in the interviews. Respondent 2 (T) noticed that someone had been gnawing on a plastic water bowl left for the birds, but it turned out to be a hooded crow, not a rodent. Respondent 7 (B) mentioned rodents \u0026ndash; likely mice \u0026ndash; nesting in the duvets left inside the cottage for winter and \u0026ldquo;having a party\u0026rdquo; there. Quite surprisingly however, no stories of destroyed appliances were told.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eClaiming rights by reproduction also was brought up surprisingly rarely. Most people spoke of not attracting rats with food, as if the rats were appearing in the garden only from the outside. The large number of rats was attributed solely to the construction works near the gardens. Respondent 13 (B) recalled how their spouse saw rats mating in their allotment once. Only one interviewee, in the recollection of rat nest under the cottage floor, mentioned there were rat kittens in the nest. While many participants brought up the uncontrollability of large numbers of rats as a concern, in the context of the gardens it was mostly related to the influx of rats from elsewhere.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTwo participants claimed that several other people in the garden have become infected with \u003cem\u003eCampylobacter\u003c/em\u003e after eating unwashed apples that fell to the ground \u0026ndash; after, presumably, the rats had left the bacteria on the apples. One person even employed a strategy of never eating anything that fell to the ground for fear of zoonoses. While fear of infection was a recurring theme in the context of rats, not all respondents thought it was grounded as there were no way of verifying these claims. Two respondents even joked about how contacting a zoonosis would require \u0026ldquo;hanging out\u0026rdquo; with the rats. Most people were not able to name the potential diseases, but \u003cem\u003eCampylobacter\u003c/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eSalmonella\u003c/em\u003e were mentioned. One respondent hypothesized that in the first months of the Covid-19 pandemic, people suspected the rats of being disease vectors.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eHuman responses to rats\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRespondent 7 (B): \u0026ldquo;When you asked that was there any discussion. I think the assumption, the general assumption was that rats are not wanted here. There wasn\u0026apos;t a big debate about why. I don\u0026apos;t, at least I don\u0026apos;t remember there being, having, I don\u0026apos;t remember that there, I don\u0026apos;t remember that anyone stood up and said let the rats be. Yeah.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOverall, the rats\u0026rsquo; claims were not met with kindness, especially in Brunak\u0026auml;rr.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRespondent 4 (B): \u0026ldquo;We\u0026rsquo;ve had a rat crisis there.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRespondent 9 (T): \u0026ldquo;It was a bit of a rat chaos here\u0026rdquo;.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRespondent 11 (B): \u0026ldquo;Of course, there are an awful lot of rats here, or maybe not a lot anymore. But in any case, at some point there was such a rat war here.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRespondent 13 (B): \u0026ldquo;And there are those who support such an intense war [against the rats], who are perhaps [laughing] related to some kind of fascists.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA group of especially worried gardeners gathered and demanded that the garden board pays for rodenticide baiting. However, the use of pesticides is against the garden regulations. Some gardeners thought that they were treated unfairly, and their worries were not taken seriously by the board; one even considered taking legal action. Eventually the board invited TA to give a talk about rat ecology and disease. According to many respondents, this had calmed the gardeners once they realized that the threat is not as serious as they previously believed. After the talk, the garden community voted whether to hire a pest management company, and the majority voted against it. However, not all agreed. The most worried gardeners decided to collect money among themselves and hire a pest management company that used electricity-based rat traps. Over the course of a year, the traps had killed ten rats, pricing each rat at 250 euros.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn Tali, the gardeners took the matter in their own hands. Some gardeners formed a self-proclaimed \u0026ldquo;hunting association\u0026rdquo; and they devised traps themselves: they bought plastic basins and cut holes in them that looked like burrow entrances. Under each basin, a mechanical rat trap was placed, with candy as bait. On top of the traps, the gardeners would put heavy stones to make sure that birds wouldn\u0026rsquo;t get killed. The gardeners claimed to have trapped 30 rats during one summer. These traps are still in use in the garden, but many respondents doubted their effectiveness or even confessed they forgot about them. Others said that the traps often caught mice, but not rats. The Tali garden board had also invited TA for a talk, and it was recounted by many respondents. However, it did not seem to make such a strong impression as in Brunak\u0026auml;rr \u0026ndash; perhaps because the human-rat conflict was not as visible in Tali.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe bring up these lethal means of control, even though they do not fit in the denizenship framework, for two reasons: to depict the events accurately, but also to highlight their limited efficiency, as shown by the numbers of rats trapped. Not all respondents agreed with them. Given the number of allotments in each garden, it becomes clear that only very few people participated in rat trapping, and other, less violent negotiation strategies were preferred.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRespondent 11 (B): \u0026ldquo;Through the rat war, I somehow started to sympathize more with those rats. I thought it was so ridiculous to have people goofing over them. I began to wonder if there was any point in this. Let it [the rat] be!\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRespondent 9 (T): \u0026ldquo;And then they put some stupid traps in there, but it\u0026apos;s probably because people wouldn\u0026rsquo;t be quiet [about rats] so they wanted to do something, even if it wouldn\u0026rsquo;t achieve anything.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAfter rats made their claims, the garden boards changed their regulations \u0026ndash; now all compost bins needed to be closed, to limit foraging opportunities, and wire mesh had to be put around the cottage foundations to prevent rats and other animals from nesting there. In this way, rats quite literally affected the local legislation. They also prompted the gardeners to invent new strategies of spotting claims: one placed a mix of sand and sawdust on the ground to see if there would be rat tracks in their allotment.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHumans were not the only ones to refute rats\u0026rsquo; claims, though. Several respondents told stories of stoats and even common weasels \u0026ldquo;controlling\u0026rdquo; the rodents in the garden area, even though rats rarely are part of common weasel diet. Although it is illegal to let companion animals roam freely in the gardens, two respondents spoke in a positive manner about the free-roaming cats as they would repel rats and mice. Another respondent was asked to give used cat litter so that its smell would function as a repellent. In Brunak\u0026auml;rr, one person mentioned the recent appearance of hawks in the garden and hoped that they would feed on rats. Another gardener witnessed a magpie feeding on a dead rat.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt is important to note that only one person claimed to actively hate rats. Overall, the gardeners were quite neutral about the rats. They mostly worried about rats intruding in their spaces. Some accepted the rats in the corners of their allotments, or outside the allotments but in the gardens.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRespondent 1 (B): \u0026ldquo;So yeah, as soon as it\u0026apos;s a little further over there, it doesn\u0026apos;t bother me at all. But then, when there were those corridors here, and then I thought that whatever animal was there (...) it would have been terrible for me to know that it was a rat\u0026apos;s nest there.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRespondent 5 (B): \u0026ldquo;I don\u0026apos;t know if they [rats] do anything. People just find them disgusting. I don\u0026apos;t know if they do any harm. So, I don\u0026apos;t know. (\u0026hellip;) It may be that they do, but they don\u0026apos;t bother me if they\u0026apos;re here, as long as they don\u0026apos;t come very close. I think they can be here.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRespondent 7 (B): \u0026ldquo;I\u0026apos;m not quite sure how I feel about rats. (\u0026hellip;) I guess my condition is that if my projects are left alone [by the rats], then I can leave everything else alone. We\u0026apos;re not going to kill any animals here.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRespondent 10 (B): \u0026ldquo;Many people are of the opinion that you shouldn\u0026apos;t even put rat traps. That the rats have every right to live here as much as we do. And then I feel a little guilty. I usually have a rat trap because there has been a lot of rats here. And it annoyed me, not now, but [laughs] when you\u0026apos;re sitting inside and there\u0026apos;s a rat standing there on the stairs and trying to get in, [shudders] I feel like, I don\u0026apos;t want you to go in. There must be some limit, I have one [trap] right next to the door, a bit helpless, yes, but in any case, it\u0026apos;s like a little bit of a sign to them that it\u0026apos;s not good for them here, stay somewhere else, but not right next to the door. Yeah.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe new human-rat code\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAfter the implementation of closed composts and wire mesh, the human-rat conflict subsided. The rats were, and still are, present in the gardens; they still have their paths, and they still are given reign over abandoned allotments. The food that has fallen to the ground is ceded to them, as pictured by the person who decided not to eat it. The new human-rat code of conduct appears to center sharing space: the rats are allowed as long as they are not seen, and as long as they do not encroach upon human spaces (cottages, outdoor dining areas and such). In turn, the humans withdraw from lethal means of movement and reproduction control. The human actions in this current status quo reflect the strategies allowed in Donaldson and Kymlicka\u0026rsquo;s denizenship project: physical barriers (wire mesh blocking the way under the cottages), disincentives (repellents such as cat litter), limited food supply (closed compost bins), habitat corridors (areas with overgrown vegetation leading to nearby parks) and safe zones (abandoned or unused allotments). In Donaldson\u0026rsquo;s and Kymlicka\u0026rsquo;s understanding of animal denizenship, the responsibility of humans towards other animals does not extend to affecting the predator-prey relationships between nonhuman species. In this framework, ensuing a safe zone for a species does not require that said species is protected from being preyed upon.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn both gardens, the garden board members invited TA to give talk, which would be an example of anti-stigma safeguard through education. Whereas not everyone was convinced by the talk, it had a significant impact on the garden communities. In Brunak\u0026auml;rr, the talk affected the choice to vote against lethal pest control methods. The view of rats as filthy plague-bearers was, to some extent, replaced by a more neutral one.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe interviews with humans and our own observations from the gardens provide a glimpse into rat agency at play. Some gardeners emphasized the rats\u0026rsquo; intelligence and their ability to avoid traps. In the case of respondent 10 (B), there was an explicit wish to communicate with the rats how close they are allowed to get. At the end of our study, the rats are still very much present in the gardens. They have found new nesting sites, and they still enjoy the abundance of food. Their adjustments to avoid predation also help them to adapt to human temporality: they use the garden at dusk, where humans are less likely to be present.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe current code of conduct is best illustrated by the words of respondent 7 (B): as long as the rats leave the gardener\u0026rsquo;s project alone, they too will be left alone. But the condition for the rats is not particularly strict, as in practice they can burrow, forage and move in the garden. They only need to make themselves \u0026ndash; and their traces \u0026ndash; as invisible to humans as they can. There is plenty of rat experience we have no access to, therefore our understanding of the code of conduct on their part is limited. But at the current moment it appears to be successful \u0026ndash; humans and rats have stated their needs and found ways of acting accordingly.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"DISCUSSION","content":"\u003cp\u003eThere used to be a status quo between humans and rats in the allotment gardens, but its interruption \u0026ndash; the disturbance of rat burrows by the construction work \u0026ndash; forced the rats to find new spaces and required establishing a new way of coexisting. As depicted by the readiness to use lethal traps, this process was by no means a peaceful one, particularly at first. The garden became a conflict zone. However, we are considering the processes in Brunak\u0026auml;rr and Tali as success stories, because ultimately, nonviolent strategies and human attunement to rat needs were the drivers behind the new, peaceful code of conduct.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe gardeners became attuned to rat presence by noticing their traces, trails, and marks. Hinchliffe and colleagues (2005) frame the traces that nonhuman animals leave in the city as \u0026ldquo;writing\u0026rdquo;: leaving behind material messages that are later interpreted by humans or other nonhumans. Such writing is multisensory \u0026ndash; it could take the form of leaving visible paw prints, scent-marking, or altering the texture of an object by gnawing. By engaging multiple senses, reading those messages builds embodied knowledge. This is reflected in the quote from Respondent 18 (T), who was worried that once she notices rat presence, she would be more aware of how common it is \u0026ndash; she would become attuned to it. Similarly, the gardener who noticed a rat nest under their garden shed became attuned to rat scents. Nonetheless through the multispecies negotiations, the gardeners became more attuned to rat writing. The embodied ecological knowledge of rat movements could be seen in the detailed accounts of human-rat encounters and the understanding of causal relationships between the events of the conflict.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eEnacting MSJ through coexistence with urban animals is a process, not an endpoint. It requires constant adaptation, which relies on attunement and noticing the changes in the environment and the behavior of others. Sometimes the strategies implemented by humans fail because they have outlived their usefulness \u0026ndash; for example, an animal has adapted to overcome the barrier raised by humans \u0026ndash; or because the circumstances have changed. The old composting strategy had served the gardeners well enough until the construction work began. A new strategy arose in response to the change in circumstances. Strategy failure indicates the need to readjust the protocol. It is important to note that small-scale adjustments occur all the time, like in the case of the gardener who tried burying their uneaten apples, but then they noticed that apples attracted rats.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eEstablishing a more-than-human protocol requires consistency on the humans\u0026rsquo; part. We witnessed numerous inconsistencies in the human-rat interactions in the gardens: not all cottages were surrounded by wire mesh and not everyone ensured that food was hidden away from the rats. As Brookshire (2022) observes, animals encountering humans often have little clue what to expect: while some people will act in a friendly manner, others will try to scare or hurt the animal. Such inconsistencies could arise from inattentiveness, insufficient motivation to change one\u0026rsquo;s behavior (as when one gardener deemed changing their composting system as too laborious), or lack of knowledge about rats (for example, not realizing that rats could feed on a bag of seeds). Recognizing what constitutes a (non-preferred) welcoming message for a rat also requires attunement and a shift of perspective to see how the human and the rat become entangled (Despret, 2013). This leads to a paradox: attunement can be a source of dread, when the presence of rats becomes noticeable, but it is also necessary to communicate with rats effectively. Throughout the field work and in the conversations with the gardeners, we have noticed that participation in the study became a motivation and encouragement for attunement. The respondents were contacting us by email to inform us about the animals they have seen in the gardens; one person observed three animal species they have never noticed in the garden before. We contributed to the creation of garden protocols in our own ways by participating in everyday life in the gardens as KL and ML did, or by giving a talk about rats and pathogens as TA did.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAs the gardeners, rats living in the gardens are also individuals with different life situations. Thus, they are not always attuned in same ways to gardeners\u0026rsquo; messages and otherwise accepted barriers are sometimes contested. As von Essen and colleagues point out (2023), the responses to humans\u0026rsquo; actions will be mediated by an animal\u0026rsquo;s internal and external contexts, including its health status and life cycle (for example, whether it\u0026rsquo;s brooding), the time of the year, the weather conditions. We have observed these situations in the UAGs as rats would occasionally be spotted even in the best rat-proofed plots. However, we view them not as failures, but as instances of ongoing dynamic negotiations and animals countering human responses. They highlight the fact that rats are resisting some of the terms laid out by humans. Accepting that human responses to rats can be contested \u0026ndash; and that humans may need to adapt \u0026ndash; is crucial for the denizenship project as it is a form of recognizing rat agency and needs in the negotiations. Similarly, understanding that local weather and other external factors will affect rat behavior is conducive to adapting the protocol to the changing conditions.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eOur study has its limitations. First, UAGs are quite unique as urban spaces. They are designed for more-than-human interactions. Many of the dangers to urban animals \u0026ndash; such as car traffic, predators, or noise pollution \u0026ndash; are either absent or limited in comparison to other urban spaces. One could argue that UAGs constitute, if not safe zones, then safer zones for urban animals. However, UAGs are still urban spaces strongly affected by the near environment, as reflected by the construction work that triggered the human-rat conflict. It is also their specific focus on more-than-human interactions that makes them valuable research sites to study how said interactions become protocols. Secondly, the respondents in this study represented a rather homogenous group of white, middle class, predominantly retired Finnish citizens, which do not reflect the full diversity of people living in Helsinki, and thus likely the scope and variety of attitudes and behavior towards urban animals. Our current work aims to address this limitation by collecting data from other, more diverse urban gardener communities.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eWhenever humans and non-humans interact, the process of claim-making and negotiating takes place. More often than not, we participate in it without realizing that we are negotiating \u0026ndash; or that the animals are active participants in this process, as was the case of the urban gardeners and rats. We propose the framework of negotiated codes of conduct as a tool to recognize pathways towards solutions that achieve multispecies justice. Our study shows that attunement to urban animals becomes embodied socio-ecological knowledge and can lead to finding just ways of coexistence. As reflected in one of the interviews, the idea of messaging with rats (or other species) can arise spontaneously in local communities. We also note the importance of consistency in human behavior towards nonhuman neighbors. Here, too, the code of conduct framework is of potential value: we suggest that explicitly viewing our own behaviors as enacting (or countering) protocols of just coexistence rather than unrelated episodes can support adherence to the code, and ultimately, contribution to multispecies justice.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"METHODS","content":"\u003cp\u003eThe project combined semi-structured interviews with gardeners and camera observations in the plots within allotment gardens. Throughout the five-month field work period (May 2023-September 2023), KL and ML regularly visited the gardens and had informal conversations with the gardeners, which provided additional context and information for this study. The findings of this paper are based on the interviews as well as observations and field notes from the gardens. The interviews and analysis were conducted according to the principles of grounded theory (Charmaz, 2006; Charmaz \u0026amp; Thornberg, 2021).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eWe have conducted 21 interviews with overall 22 individuals (in one case, we interviewed a couple). The interviews were semi-structured and probed four clusters of themes: background and previous experience with nonhuman nature; the use of the garden and plants; the social relations in the garden and between the garden in the city; the human-nonhuman animal interactions and experiences in the garden. On average the interviews lasted 2 hours, with the longest lasting over 4 hours and the shortest about 1 hour. Rather than directly asking about more-than-human conflicts, the interviewers asked about situations involving nonhuman animals and what happened next. Thus the conflicts were viewed as processes embedded in context rather than solitary instances.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe participant recruitment was done using a variety of techniques. Firstly, the study was advertised through garden community communication channels. In the case of Brunakärr, the study was also described during the opening of the gardening season 2023. When these methods proved insufficient, participants were recruited through snowballing. Some participants were recruited by randomly asking.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec8\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e"},{"header":"RESEARCH SITES","content":"\u003cp\u003eBrunakärr/Ruskeasuo UAG is the oldest of such gardens in Helsinki, established in 1918 and remaining in its original location. While initially the garden was located on the outskirts of the city, today it finds itself in a busy area, near the communication hub Pasila and the Central Park. The garden remains the only Swedish-speaking garden in Finland, providing space for a linguistic minority. In its early days, the purpose of the garden was to enable people to grow their own produce in the lean post-war period. Currently its 117 plots are primarily recreational spaces for the Swedish-speaking community as well as the Finnish-speaking gardeners.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe size of the plots varies from 100m2 to 700m2, and since 2015 the cottages built on plots need to adhere to predefined standards and a color scheme. The plots are accessed by alleys. There is also a meeting house on the premises as well as a communal sauna with showers. Running water is available only throughout the summer, though some gardeners adjust their cottages to make them habitable also in wintertime.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe land on which the garden is standing belongs to the city of Helsinki, although the gardeners own their cottages, plants, and the lease to each plot. The city renews the lease each X years, and as this study took place during pre-renewal season, many gardeners expressed anxiety about Brunakärr’s future. Legally, the space is classified as a park, and as such it must adhere to city regulations. The types of plants that can be planted are delineated, and there is effort to remove invasive species, such as the Rugosa rose, large-leaved lupine and the Himalayan balsam. The shrubs and trees cannot be taller than X and Xcm, respectively, and the garden board conducts regular inspections to make sure the gardeners prune their plants. The city regulations for UAGs require the gardeners to use nets against rabbits.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTali UAG was established in 1936, in western Helsinki, and is flanked from the south with a recreational forest growing along the seaside. From the north it is flanked by one of Helsinki’s major roads. Similarly to Brunakärr, Tali was intended to be a space where people could grow their own produce, but in the postwar period, the garden was gradually equipped with electricity and running water to enable its recreational use. The garden also has its meeting house and own saunas and is a short walk away from a golf field and sports facilities. Tali comprises 241 plots.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBoth gardens are characterized by long history as well as strong sense of identity and community. They have their own flags, songs and celebrations. Many of the plots have been leased by multiple generations of the same families. The cost of lease and upkeep is significant, as it includes cottage maintenance. The plots in these gardens are highly sought after. Due to these socioeconomic conditions, the gardener population in both Brunakärr and Tali skews towards white Finnish upper middle-class citizens, often retired.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Declarations","content":"\u003ch2\u003eAuthor Contribution\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eKL conceptualized the study with the help of ML and TA.\u0026nbsp; KL and ML collected and analyzed the data. KL wrote the main manuscript text and prepared figure 1. TA and ML reviewed and revised the manuscript.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"References","content":"\u003col\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eArcari, P. (2019). \u0026lsquo;Dynamic\u0026rsquo;non-human animals in theories of practice: views from the subaltern. \u003cem\u003eSocial practices and dynamic non-humans: Nature, materials and technologies\u003c/em\u003e, 63-86.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eArcari, P., Probyn-Rapsey, F., \u0026amp; Singer, H. (2021). Where species don\u0026rsquo;t meet: Invisibilized animals, urban nature and city limits.\u0026nbsp;\u003cem\u003eEnvironment and Planning E: Nature and Space,\u003c/em\u003e 4(3), 940-965. https://doi.org/10.1177/2514848620939870\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eBarua, M., \u0026amp; Sinha, A. (2017). Animating the urban: an ethological and geographical conversation.\u0026nbsp;\u003cem\u003eSocial \u0026amp; Cultural Geography\u003c/em\u003e,\u0026nbsp;\u003cem\u003e20\u003c/em\u003e(8), 1160\u0026ndash;1180. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2017.1409908\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eBrookshire, B. (2022). Pests: How Humans Create Animal Villains. HarperCollins. p. 218.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eBrouwer, D. D. Z. (2018).\u0026nbsp;\u003cem\u003eNeither Wild nor Domesticated: Positioning Liminal Animals through Labour Rights\u003c/em\u003e (Master\u0026apos;s thesis, Queen\u0026apos;s University (Canada)).\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eByers, K. A., Lee, M. J., Patrick, D. M., \u0026amp; Himsworth, C. G. (2019). Rats about town: a systematic review of rat movement in urban ecosystems.\u0026nbsp;\u003cem\u003eFrontiers in Ecology and Evolution\u003c/em\u003e,\u0026nbsp;\u003cem\u003e7\u003c/em\u003e, 13.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eCelermajer, D., Schlosberg, D., Rickards, L., Stewart-Harawira, M., Thaler, M., Tschakert, P., \u0026hellip; Winter, C. (2020). Multispecies justice: theories, challenges, and a research agenda for environmental politics.\u0026nbsp;\u003cem\u003eEnvironmental Politics\u003c/em\u003e,\u0026nbsp;\u003cem\u003e30\u003c/em\u003e(1\u0026ndash;2), 119\u0026ndash;140. https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2020.1827608\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eCharmaz, K. (2006).\u0026nbsp;\u003cem\u003eConstructing grounded theory: A practical guide through qualitative analysis\u003c/em\u003e. Sage.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eCharmaz, K., \u0026amp; Thornberg, R. (2021). The pursuit of quality in grounded theory.\u0026nbsp;\u003cem\u003eQualitative research in psychology\u003c/em\u003e, 18(3), 305-327.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003ede Bondt, H., de Wilde, M., \u0026amp; Jaffe, R. (2023). Rats claiming rights? More‐than‐human acts of denizenship in Amsterdam.\u0026nbsp;\u003cem\u003ePoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review\u003c/em\u003e,\u0026nbsp;\u003cem\u003e46\u003c/em\u003e(1), 67-81.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eDelshammar, T., Partalidou, M., \u0026amp; Evans, R. (2016). Building trust and social skills in urban allotment gardens. In Urban allotment gardens in Europe (pp. 342-363). Routledge.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eDespret, V. (2013). Responding Bodies and Partial Affinities in Human\u0026ndash;Animal Worlds\u003cem\u003e. Theory, Culture \u0026amp; Society\u003c/em\u003e, 30(7-8), 51-76. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276413496852\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eDonaldson, S., \u0026amp; Kymlicka, W. (2011).\u0026nbsp;\u003cem\u003eZoopolis: A political theory of animal rights\u003c/em\u003e. Oxford University Press, USA.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eDunn, R. R., Gavin, M. C., Sanchez, M. C., \u0026amp; Solomon, J. N. (2006). The pigeon paradox: dependence of global conservation on urban nature.\u0026nbsp;\u003cem\u003eConservation biology\u003c/em\u003e, 1814-1816.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eEdelman, B. (2002). \u0026lsquo;Rats Are People, Too!\u0026rsquo; Rat-Human Relations Re-Rated.\u0026nbsp;\u003cem\u003eAnthropology Today\u0026nbsp;\u003c/em\u003e18(3).\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eHinchliffe, S., Kearnes, M. B., Degen, M., \u0026amp; Whatmore, S. (2005). Urban wild things: a cosmopolitical experiment.\u0026nbsp;\u003cem\u003eEnvironment and planning D: Society and Space\u003c/em\u003e,\u0026nbsp;\u003cem\u003e23\u003c/em\u003e(5), 643-658.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003e\u0026nbsp;Hinchliffe, S., \u0026amp; Whatmore, S. (2006). Living cities: Towards a politics of conviviality.\u0026nbsp;\u003cem\u003eScience as Culture\u003c/em\u003e,\u0026nbsp;\u003cem\u003e15\u003c/em\u003e(2), 123\u0026ndash;138. https://doi.org/10.1080/09505430600707988\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eJevbratt, L. (2009). Zoomorph-enabling interspecies collaboration.\u0026nbsp;\u003cem\u003eISEA, Belfast, UK, http://zoomorph. org\u003c/em\u003e.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eJokinen, A. (2016). Social-ecological memory in allotment gardens in Tampere, Finland. In \u003cem\u003eUrban allotment gardens in Europe\u003c/em\u003e (pp. 130-131). Routledge.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eKacprzak, E., \u0026amp; Szczepańska, M. (2024). Will Allotment Gardening Save Us Again? Allotment Gardens during a COVID-19 Pandemic in a City with a Shortage of Plots.\u0026nbsp;\u003cem\u003eSustainability\u003c/em\u003e,\u0026nbsp;\u003cem\u003e16\u003c/em\u003e(5), 1981.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eKeshavarz, N., Bell, S., Zilans, A., Hursthouse, A., Voigt, A., Hobbelink, A., ... \u0026amp; Gogov\u0026aacute;, Z. (2016). A history of urban gardens in Europe. In\u0026nbsp;\u003cem\u003eUrban allotment gardens in Europe\u003c/em\u003e (pp. 8-32). Routledge.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eLatour, B. (2007).\u0026nbsp;\u003cem\u003eReassembling the social: An introduction to actor-network-theory\u003c/em\u003e. Oup Oxford.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eLorimer, J. (2007). Nonhuman charisma.\u0026nbsp;\u003cem\u003eEnvironment and Planning D: Society and Space\u003c/em\u003e,\u0026nbsp;\u003cem\u003e25\u003c/em\u003e(5), 911-932.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eNiala, J. C. (2021). Dig for vitality: UK urban allotments as a health-promoting response to COVID-19.\u0026nbsp;\u003cem\u003eCities \u0026amp; Health\u003c/em\u003e,\u0026nbsp;\u003cem\u003e5\u003c/em\u003e(sup1), S227-S231.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003ePineda-Pinto, M., Kennedy, C., Collier, M., Cooper, C., O\u0026rsquo;Donnell, M., Nulty, F., \u0026amp; Castaneda, N. R. (2023). Finding justice in wild, novel ecosystems: A review through a multispecies lens.\u0026nbsp;\u003cem\u003eUrban Forestry \u0026amp; Urban Greening\u003c/em\u003e,\u0026nbsp;\u003cem\u003e83\u003c/em\u003e, 127902.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003ePoniży, L., Latkowska, M. J., Breuste, J., Hursthouse, A., Joimel, S., K\u0026uuml;lvik, M., ... \u0026amp; Szczepańska, M. (2021). 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Multispecies justice: Climate‐just futures with, for and beyond humans.\u0026nbsp;\u003cem\u003eWiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change\u003c/em\u003e,\u0026nbsp;\u003cem\u003e12\u003c/em\u003e(2), e699.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eTschakert, P. (2022). More-than-human solidarity and multispecies justice in the climate crisis.\u0026nbsp;\u003cem\u003eEnvironmental Politics\u003c/em\u003e,\u0026nbsp;\u003cem\u003e31\u003c/em\u003e(2), 277-296.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eVon Essen, E., Drenthen, M., \u0026amp; Bhardwaj, M. (2023). How fences communicate interspecies codes of conduct in the landscape: toward bidirectional communication?.\u0026nbsp;\u003cem\u003eWildlife Biology\u003c/em\u003e, e01146.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eWadiwel, D. (2018). Chicken harvesting machine: Animal labor, resistance, and the time of production.\u0026nbsp;\u003cem\u003eSouth Atlantic Quarterly\u003c/em\u003e,\u0026nbsp;\u003cem\u003e117\u003c/em\u003e(3), 527-549.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e"}],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":true,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":false,"hideJournal":false,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":true,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":false,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":false,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"npj-urban-sustainability","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"npjurbansustain","sideBox":"Learn more about [npj Urban Sustainability](https://www.nature.com/npjurbansustain/)","snPcode":"42949","submissionUrl":"https://submission.springernature.com/new-submission/42949/3","title":"npj Urban Sustainability","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"stoa","reportingPortfolio":"NPJ","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-5536404/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-5536404/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003cp\u003eOur study, comprising interviews and ethnographic observation, examines the human-rat conflict that arose in two urban allotment gardens in Helsinki as a case of multispecies negotiations. We view the rats\u0026rsquo; presence and actions in the gardens as political claim-making, to which humans respond. Through these interactions, humans become attuned to the rats\u0026rsquo; needs and build socio-ecological knowledge that is vital for more-than-human coexistence. As a result, the gardeners and the rats co-create an implicit code of conduct that defines the conditions of peaceful coexistence. We propose that the code of conduct framework is a useful tool in recognizing pathways towards solutions that achieve multispecies justice.\u003c/p\u003e","manuscriptTitle":"Codes of conduct: towards just coexistence in urban spaces","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2024-12-19 20:04:09","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-5536404/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0},{"type":"decision","content":"Revision requested","date":"2025-03-15T13:48:45+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"editorInvitedReview","content":"","date":"2025-02-27T13:42:32+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewerAgreed","content":"203022503471074592624851145938335502255","date":"2025-02-24T08:07:52+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewerAgreed","content":"100018181387498956537707657345883812209","date":"2025-02-23T21:52:33+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"editorInvitedReview","content":"","date":"2025-02-21T12:00:45+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewerAgreed","content":"162483679126721292489018031840833751603","date":"2025-02-19T16:34:39+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewerAgreed","content":"320960614572656186293496521009028240239","date":"2025-02-19T08:14:50+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewersInvited","content":"","date":"2025-01-20T21:44:45+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"editorAssigned","content":"","date":"2024-12-06T23:45:53+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"checksComplete","content":"","date":"2024-12-02T13:40:18+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"submitted","content":"npj Urban Sustainability","date":"2024-11-27T14:43:34+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"npj-urban-sustainability","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"npjurbansustain","sideBox":"Learn more about [npj Urban Sustainability](https://www.nature.com/npjurbansustain/)","snPcode":"42949","submissionUrl":"https://submission.springernature.com/new-submission/42949/3","title":"npj Urban Sustainability","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"stoa","reportingPortfolio":"NPJ","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"048b3e4d-51d7-4302-b107-592439d1d91a","owner":[],"postedDate":"December 19th, 2024","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"published-in-journal","subjectAreas":[{"id":41589224,"name":"Social science/Environmental studies"},{"id":41589225,"name":"Biological sciences/Ecology/Urban ecology"}],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2025-07-21T16:03:02+00:00","versionOfRecord":{"articleIdentity":"rs-5536404","link":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s42949-025-00232-w","journal":{"identity":"npj-urban-sustainability","isVorOnly":false,"title":"npj Urban Sustainability"},"publishedOn":"2025-07-15 15:57:36","publishedOnDateReadable":"July 15th, 2025"},"versionCreatedAt":"2024-12-19 20:04:09","video":"","vorDoi":"10.1038/s42949-025-00232-w","vorDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s42949-025-00232-w","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-5536404","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-5536404","identity":"rs-5536404","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"qtupq5eGEP_6zYnWcrvyt","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}