For over a decade the Hawaiian crow, or ‘alalā, has been extinct in the wild, the only remaining birds living their lives in captivity. As the time for possible release approaches, questions of species identity – in particular focused on how birds have been changed by captivity – have become increasingly pressing. This article explores how identity is imagined and managed in this programme to produce ‘authentic’ crows. In particular, it asks what possibilities might be opened up by a move (...) beyond relatively static notions of how these birds ought to be, towards more performative understandings of species identity. This shift in focus prompts us to ask how we might take up the task of learning to be part of these birds’ own experiments in emergent forms of ‘crow-ness’, so that we might begin to craft vital new forms of ‘polite’ conservation in this era of incredible biodiversity loss. (shrink)

Bioacoustics is an interdisciplinary field bridging biological and acoustic sciences, which uses sound technologies to record, preserve, and analyse large datasets of animal communications. But it is also a world, made of the meanings created through inter- and intra-species communication. This article empirically explores a variety of bioacoustics research, including interviews with researchers, as part of a broader qualitative study, in order to theorize the expanding sense and sensation of a global biosphere and sonic data. By giving a sustained and (...) detailed account of the science of bioacoustics, particularly how its modes of measurement allow for a new way of understanding what is involved in the de-centred modes of hearing that re-centre acts of listening and, by extension, the nature of the relation between researcher and researched, the article contributes to methodological discussions regarding the longstanding questions of how researchers and scientists are implicated in the knowledge and objects they collectively produce. (shrink)

Rather than focus on effects, the isolatable and measureable outcomes of events and interventions, the papers assembled here offer different perspectives on the affective dimension of the meaning and politics of human/non-human relations. The authors begin by drawing attention to the constructed discontinuity between humans and non-humans, and to the kinds of knowledge and socialities that this discontinuity sustains, including those underpinned by nature-culture, subject-object, body-mind, individual-society polarities. The articles presented track human/non-human relations through different domains, including: humans/non-humans in history (...) and animal welfare science (Fudge and Buller); the relationship between the way we live, the effects on our natural environment and contested knowledges about ‘nature’ (Whatmore); choreographies of everyday life and everyday science practices with non-human animals such as horses, meerkats, mice, and wolves (Latimer, Candea, Davies, Despret). Each paper also goes on to offer different perspectives on the human/non-human not just as division, or even as an asymmetrical relation, but as relations that are mutually affective, however invisible and inexpressible in the domain of science. Thus the collection contributes to new epistemologies/ontologies that undercut the usual ordering of relations and their dichotomies, particularly in that dominant domain of contemporary culture that we call science. Indeed, in their impetus to capture ‘affect’, the collection goes beyond the usual turn towards a more inclusive ontology, and contributes to the radical shift in the epistemology and philosophy of science’s terms of engagement. (shrink)

This paper examines how digital technologies might be used to improve ethical attitudes towards nonhuman animals, by exploring the case study of nonhuman apes kept in modern zoos. The paper describes and employs a socio-ethical framework for undermining anti-ape prejudice advanced by philosopher Edouard Machery which draws on classic anti-racism strategies from the social sciences. We also discuss how digital technologies might be designed and deployed to enable and enhance rather than impede the three anti-prejudice strategies of contact and interaction, (...) enlightenment, and individualization. In doing so, the paper illuminates the broad potential and limitations of digital technology to both harm and benefit animals via its effects on human ethical attitudes. This examination provides guidance for future projects and empirical work on using digital technologies to promote moral respect for a range of nonhuman animals in different settings. (shrink)