The Bird Identifiers : A study of the formation of visions in birdwatching

This is a study of how “birdwatching visions” are created through the relations between human and non-human actors in birdwatching, and what kind of representations of birds that are constituted within these visions. The aims have mainly been examined by participant observations of birdwatching in Sweden; participant observations of the work done by the NGO BirdLife Malta during the Spring hunting season of birds in Malta; and by interviewing birdwatchers in both contexts. The Actor-Network Theory serves as the theoretical perspective used to analyze how birdwatching visions are ordered and shaped in birdwatching, and how birds as “socio-material phenomenon” are constituted. The study shows how birdwatchers, through their relations to different devices, improve their abilities to determine species of birds, both by using equipment that extend their biological abilities, and equipment that offer a model of interpretation. The study also shows that the birdwatching visions are built upon a taxonomic and focused ways of thinking about birds, where the birds are given certain meanings depending on their occurrence in time and space and what kind of “species” they are identified as.