Full Description
Examining social constructions and perceptions of nature.
In Wild and Wonderful, social anthropologist Vanessa Manceron investigates an understudied but indispensable scientific practice: getting to know and recognize the living worlds around us. Her research takes her to England, where a longstanding naturalist tradition brings together professionals, academics, and amateurs to study the world around them. Observing the natural world here is regarded not as a simple hobby, but as a necessary activity. This is participatory science, an itinerant brand of scholarship that immerses itself in a specific and delimited territory, meticulously documenting the species living there and how they develop and expand their domain or regress and disappear. Manceron leads us through woods and fields, showing us another way of looking, of paying attention to minute differences, sounds, and variations of color. Her book is both a contribution to the anthropology of science and an opportunity to take a fresh look at our relationship with nature, affording us a glimpse of another way of living and living with.
Contents
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Knowing and Recognizing
1.Involvement
An English Countryside
Connecting
Watching Over
2.Pairing
Genesis
Coming into Contact
3.A Window on Existence
Completeness
Freeing Oneself
4.Assembling
Microcosm
Classifications and Variations
5.Collating
Specimens and Images
Misidentifying
Perceptual Pitfalls
Fusing
6.Wonderful Creatures
Avian Zoography
Otherness and Immersion
Parting the Curtain
7.Vanishing
Still Succumbing
What Is Going on?
The Burden of Responsibility
Recomposing
Conclusion. A Form of Attention
References
Illustrations
