DR2023 Bec Purser & Sophie Goodman - Bin Chickens, Beavers and Dingos - Re-situating Ethnography Beyond Humans

Transcript

1. 1 Bin Chickens & Beavers Re-situating Ethnography Sophie Goodman & Bec Purser
2. 2 cknowl ment We respectfully acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land on which this event is being held. Melbourne has always been a significant gathering place for the groups of the Kulin Nation, and we acknowledge and respect their continuing connection with the land.
3. 3 bout About Us Because we are easily annoyed, like to follow rabbit holes, and don’t know when to stop asking why.
4. 4 Where are we and how did we get here? 01 Malinowski & Beyond Re-situating Ethnography (Fletcher, 2017) (Fletcher, 2017)
5. 5 Brief history of ethnography Ethnographers employ multiple research techniques and methods in a complex research strategy that matches the complexity of the living objects under investigation (Bryman, 2004). (2010)
6. 6 What is ethnography? Ethnography. An Ethnography. Ethnographic. (Jung, 2010) (LAROUSSE, n.d.)
7. 7 A qualitative research method involves studying and documenting social and cultural phenomena in real-life settings. Ethnography focuses on observing and understanding human behaviour and social interactions within their natural environment. What is ethnography? A method.
8. 8 An ethnography informs its reader through narrative immersion, often using sensory detail and storytelling techniques. What is an Ethnography A noun and a style of writing (Jung, 2010)
9. 9 The term "ethnographic" can be used to describe a range of practices that utilise or borrow from the , including writing, filmmaking, photography, and other forms of cultural representation. What is Ethnographic? An adjective. (LAROUSSE, n.d.)
10. 10 What makes ethnography distinct? POINT OF VIEW Emphasis on the subject’s point of view. DESCRIPTIVE Rich in detail and interpretation. INDUCTIVE ANALYSIS Not knowing what needs to be known. SYMBOLIC MEANING Explores the symbolic meaning of actions and choices. IMMERSION Focus on the lived experiences of individuals and communities. SYSTEMIC INTERPRETATION Makes observations and findings of the system, not the subject alone.
11. 11 What does it mean to be Human?
12. 12 (Morgan, 2010)
13. 13 We're not seeing our impact on other species when we call the white ibis a bin chicken. (Wood, 2019)
14. 14 Australia is in the top five for extinction of animal and plant species, and the top 10 for endangered and threatened species. (Wooster, 2021)
15. 15 “Transculturation better expresses the different phases of the process of transition from one culture to another because it does not consist merely in acquiring another culture (acculturation) … but the process also necessarily involves the loss or uprooting of a previous culture (deculturation) ...and it carries the idea of new cultural phenomena (neoculturation).” Fernando Ortiz, Cuban Counterpoint, 1945 pp. 102-3.
16. 16 What is lost, gained and created when ethnography gets (re)discovered? CREATED GAINED LOST
17. 17 How do we resituate? 02 Knowledge & Care Re-situating Ethnography (2020)
18. 18 How do we resituate? Our human-centredness has also been heavily influenced by western cultures that tend to be enamoured with exploring what separates humans from animals; language, the use of tools, the ability to understand their death or consciousness (once again, the focus on what makes us human).
19. 19 (2020)
20. 20 Wiradjuri people, Central New South Wales Yarralin people, Northern Territory of Australia Maori, the Indigenous Polynesian people of New Zealand (Giffiths, n.d.) (Reid, 2012) (Rose, 1992)
21. 21 Embrace theory The way we analyse our findings The questions we ask The way we design research How do things move across space and time? Diffusion What is the purpose and function of this thing/structure? Functionalism What is the underlying logic that connects this to other things within the culture? Structuralism How do we engage and behave as members of this community? Interactionism How do people understand, perceive and classify their world? Ethnoscience If culture exists as narratives, what do we learn when we interpret those stories? Interpretive What is lost, gained and created when culture interact and how does power relate? Transculturation
22. 22 Where could we be? 03 Potential future of ethnography Re-situating Ethnography
23. 23 To recap, ethnography is in a bit of a state
24. 24 What if we were more intentional? (Foucault Pendulum Model, 2023)
25. 25 Multispecies Ethnography “Multispecies ethnography seeks to destabilize human primacy and reveal new orders of human-nonhuman relations and becomings.” (Dennis, 2022) “...acknowledges the interconnectedness and inseparability of humans and other life forms, and thus seeks to extend ethnography beyond the solely human realm. Multispecies investigations of social and cultural phenomena are attentive to the agency of other-than-human species, whether they are plants, animals, fungi, bacteria, or even viruses…” (Locke & Muenster, 2015) “...attention to lived experiences of and with other species that coheres the wide range of research that comes under the rubric of multispecies ethnography. The multiple species upon whom such ethnography focuses, however, include more than just animals. Such ethnographies also attend to plants, bacteria, larger ecosystems and the interplay of cultural and economic forces with the living world.” (McLauchlan, 2021)
26. 26 More-than- human ethnography
27. 27 What might it look like? • Animal-Computer Interaction Lab (The Open University UK) has conducted participatory workshops with assistance dogs to design indoor spaces and technology from a dog’s point of view. • Anne Galloway’s project Counting Sheep: New Zealand Merino in an Internet of Things that studies Merino sheep breeding in NZ, in particular in the face of things like climate change and animal welfare concerns. Incorporates ethnography and speculative fiction • Sarah Whatmore’s Hybrid Geographies examines the `opposition' between nature and culture as represented in scientific, environmental and popular discourses. • Swamplife analyses interactions between alligators, hunters and mangroves (Laura Ogden). • Research into domestic violence that includes nonhuman animal victims (Nik Taylor and Heather Fraser). • Exploring what a more equitable multispecies city could be based on penguins and flying foxes (Thom van Dooren & Deborah Bird Rose).
28. 28 Why now? Moving away from human-centredness • More-than-human centred design • Post-human centred design • Environmental-centred design • Designing with Country • Speculative Design • EXF (Ethnographic Experiential Futures) 2 Within Design Within Ethnography Academic and industry debates • Tim Ingold 2014 That’s Enough about Ethnography! • ‘Interviews as Ethnography’ (Seligman and Estes, 2020) • ‘Real’ problem in commercial ethnography (Nafus and Anderson, 2006) 1 (Kombumerri, 2020) (Ingold, n.d.)
29. 29 Google Trends analysis We have work to do
30. 30 Google Trends analysis Google Trends analysis
31. 31 Google Trends analysis
32. 32 Google Trends analysis
33. 33 STEP 1 RESITUATE STEP 2 ADAPT TO OTHER SPECIES STEP 3 BECOME MORE-THAN Transitioning ethnography What might our proposals and sales pitches sound like here? What might our research designs look like? What might our cities look like if we considered the needs of other species such as rock doves (pigeons!)? What might an AI of fungi look like?
34. 34 What’s next? Contact us as we’re on the journey also, of both un-learning human-centred ways and prevalence of Western thought and trying to bring ethnography’s full richness and value into organisational settings/practice beyond ‘ethnography-as-method’
35. 35 Credits and References Artwork by Liam Murray, Blankspace Poster Co. References Bronislaw Malinowski. n.d. Photograph. LAROUSSE. Accessed 2023. https://www.larousse.fr/encyclopedie/personnage/Bronis%C5%82aw_Malinowski/131349. Dennis, Simone. 2022. “On the Commonness of Skin: An Anthropology of Being in a More than Human World.” The Palgrave Handbook of the History of Human Sciences, 1–28. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-4106-3_19-1. Fletcher, Katharine. 2017. Malinowski with Trobriand Islanders. Photograph. Https://Blogs.lse.ac.uk/Lsehistory/2017/06/13/Bronislaw-Malinowski-Lse-Pioneer-of-Social-Anthropology/. London School of Economics and Political Science. . blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsehistory/2017/06/13/bronislaw-malinowski-lse-pioneer-of-social-anthropology. Foucault Pendulum Model. 2023. Photograph. Harvard Natural Sciences Lecture Demonstrations. Harvard University. https://sciencedemonstrations.fas.harvard.edu/presentations/foucault-pendulum-model. Giffiths, Ken. n.d.. Bull Ant. Photograph. Fact Files. Australian Geographic. https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/fact-file/bull-ant/. Ingold, Tim. n.d.. Portrait of Tim Ingold. Photograph. Tim Ingold. https://www.timingold.com/. Kombumerri, Dillon. 2020. Publication. Designing with Country. NSW Government . https://www.aidr.org.au/media/7760/designing-with-country-discussion-paper.pdf. Locke, Piers, and Ursula Muenster. 2015. “Multispecies Ethnography.” Oxford Bibliographies Online Datasets. https://doi.org/10.1093/obo/9780199766567-0130. McLauchlan, Laura. 2021. “Multispecies Ethnography.” Handbook of Historical Animal Studies, 393–408. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110536553-030. Morgan, Lewis Henry. 2010. The American Beaver and His Works. Photograph. Open Library. https://openlibrary.org/books/OL23272232M/The_American_beaver_and_his_works. Photograph. 2013. Travel Guide to Havana, Cuba. CONDÉ NAST TRAVELLER. https://www.cntraveller.com/article/travel-guide-havana. Photograph. 2020. ‘My Octopus Teacher’ Is the Nature Documentary We All Need Right Now. Animal Equality. https://animalequality.org/blog/2020/09/23/my-octopus-teacher/. Picture of Bronislaw Malinowski with Natives on Trobriand Islands. 2010. Photograph. Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wmalinowski_trobriand_isles_1918.jpg. Poster for My Octopus Teacher. 2020. My Octopus Teacher. Sea Change Project. https://seachangeproject.com/my-octopus-teacher/. Reid, Marian. 2012. Photograph. New Zealand’s Mighty ‘Rhine of the South.’ BBC. https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20121107-new-zealands-mighty-rhine-of-the-south. Rose, Deborah Bird. 1992. Dingo Make Us Human: Life and Land in an Australian Aboriginal Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wood, Greg. 2019. The Natural Home of the Ibis Is the Wetlands of the Murray-Darling Basin, but It Thrives and Survives in Big Cities Now. Photograph. The Guardian. Getty Images. . https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/14/bin-chickens-carve-a-warm-spot-in-australias-heart-even-as-they-raid-and-thieve. Wooster, Martin. 2021. Photograph. King's Researchers Contribute to New Study That Says Australia's 'Black Summer' Should Be a Wake-up Call. King’s College London. https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/kings-researchers-contribute-to-new-study-that-says-australias-black-summer-should-be-a-wake-up-call.