Railways as Carriers of Non-human Agency

Abstract

Everyone has visited a train station and travelled through a railway at least once. These structures are among the most common and cheaper means of transport that have accompanied our species over the years, allowing the movement of many goods and (hu-man) passengers. If, on the one hand, railways shaped European societies and cultures, on the other hand, train lines had – and still have – consequences even for non-humans. Since the climate crisis we are living in imposes a change of paradigm in our reading of the world, we need to investigate how the infrastructures we usually repute “neutral” entail meanings and usages for other species. In the following paragraphs, I will explore what a railway rep-resents for non-human organisms. I will support the idea that rail lines can be borders to some animals, dividing ecosystems, potentially harming species and reducing their essen-tial adaptive abilities. On the other hand, trains allow the migration and propagation of other living forms, like plants. This double function can, therefore, summarise the role of railways in ecosystems and may stimulate reflection on the consequences of future networks’ exten-sions. Indeed, the interests of many species and individuals must be considered when plan-ning and administrating territories since they are not white papers on which to draw projects but, on the contrary, tangles of sometimes extremely fragile balances.