This work investigates multispecies dwelling arrangements in an abattoir (slaughterhouse) in central Nigeria. The abattoir space, surrounded by dense settlement, comprises a slaughterhouse, slaughter slap, a lairage for small and big ruminants, markets, a mosque, prayer rooms, and other service points. Humans and their farmed species are not the only ones occupying the space. They are joined by many semi-domestic and wild animal-others – from dogs to rodents, cats and lizards, mosquitoes, flies, and many more. The multispecies inhabitants of the abattoir make different use of what they find in constant dynamic renegotiation with the other co-dwellers, materials and outside influences. Countless microorganisms populate these bodies, fluids, open soil, the concrete of the kill floor, air, and other materials. Thus, pathogenic infection, transmission, disease and health are embedded in this complex web of living arrangements. To shed light on these shifting socialities and their potential consequences, I adopt a comparatively novel analytical framework to investigate an abattoir, adding new perspectives to a large body of literature on the global meat industry. Through the utilisation of the dwelling perspective and by leaning on Tim Ingold’s meshwork-thinking, I approach the abattoir in a multispecies way in which no entity is distinct by itself. I show that, even though meshwork-thinking is rather phenomenological and offers little prescribed methodology, it gives tools to investigate open-ended and emergent entanglement in the texture of this lifeworld. In three comprehensive chapters, I address the central research question of what multispecies co-habitation in this abattoir can mean and how people and other species affect and relate to one another along meshwork traces from different angles. As part of that, I explore different temporalities, proximities, and specificities in moving entanglements of species with each other, the dwelt community of the abattoir, and interconnecting forces within shared space. I highlight that all cannot be separated and that action, knowledge, emotion, practice and perception emerge out of entanglement in close co-habitation. Furthermore, this thesis illustrates the dynamic, non-linear and perpetually evolving nature of these processes, which react to social, political, economic, temporal and environmental forces like the daily circle and the seasons.
