Erica von Essen,

Researcher at Norwegian Institute for Nature Research

Host: Ecosystem Services Research Group

“Citizen sensing in a Brave New Virtual World: How wildlife surveillance is used for science and entertainment“

Abstract

From red dots to heat signatures to statistics in an open-source database, wildlife are increasingly digital. In this talk, I ask what the digitalization of wild animals means for human-wildlife-expert relations. Focusing on citizen science, I consider how the digital and material practices of intelligence gathering now keep a constant vigil on our wild animals. This can be used for three ends: science, policy and entertainment. What are the ways in which citizens come to ‘know’ wildlife – from trail cams and shared databases of GPS sightings, to livestreams of nestcams? The talk departs from environmental communication, digital sociology and science and technology studies to ask about the future of wildlife surveillance.

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Mitteldeutschland