This dissertation is an ethnographic study about ecological displacement, affective encounters, the work of care, and human and animal subjectivities involved in rehabilitating endangered orangutans in Sarawak, Malaysia. Using participant-observation, interviews, archival research, and animal behavioral methods during seventeen months of fieldwork, this work exemplifies Donna Haraway's idea of 'zooethnography' by treating animals and humans as situated subjects. Specifically, I examine encounters between semi-wild orangutans, indigenous Sarawakian workers, Sarawakian Chinese and Malay middle-class managers of the semi-governmental corporation running the centers, and transnational professionals from the Global North who pay thousands of US dollars to volunteer their manual labor. I address the question, how do conflicting concepts of freedom and autonomy get produced at wildlife centers in which animals are restrained and managed for the purpose of an eventual freedom that is unobtainable? I argue that orangutan rehabilitation entails the production of affect between bodies, which in turn generates a global, postcolonial economy of human nostalgia. Despite assiduous efforts to train orangutans for a life of autonomy within the confines of forest reserves, I found that rehabilitant orangutans experience a permanently deferred independence. I offer the concept of 'arrested autonomy' as a way of understanding how subjects are forcibly made dependent while simultaneously regarded as potentially independent. This permanently deferred independence resembles the deferred promises and hopes of decolonization that have yet to materialize. / Anthropology

This diploma thesis traces the changing human, animal and technology assemblage after the recent emergence of wolf packs in Broumov region. As the return of wolves coincides with ecological transformations gaining in strength, the central research focus are the possibilities - and impossibilities - of local multispecies coexistence in the conditions of Anthropocene. The research draws upon methods of multispecies ethnography, building on the literature that examines the ontological aspects of multispecies coexistence, including primarily the work of Donna Haraway, Eduardo Kohn, Annemarie Mol, Anna Tsing and Rane Willerslev. The thesis analyzes several modes of situated multispecies coexistence which have been reconfigured or made possible by the return of wolves: administrative and sensual practice of shepherds, methods of mimetic empathy of wolf trackers, emergence of new actors interfering with local events (satellites, subsidy programmes, drought) and the translation of processes on pastures into politically engaged activities of local farmers. The thesis develops the employed concepts in such a way that they enable analyzing the situation in Broumov region as situated making of more-than-human sociality. Key words: multispecies ethnography, wolfs, pastoralism, trackers, more-than-human sociality

According to the 2022 IPCC report on mitigation of climate change, a transformational change is necessary in every aspect of society, industry and commerce by 2030 in order to keep global temperatures within safe limits. What would this transformation look like and how do we begin? I argue that applying Bruno Latour’s concept of the Terrestrial can help lead us towards the path of transformation. More specifically how the multispecies management of ecological farming in Puerto Rico can help us understand how to reorient management practices in what he calls The New Climatic Regime. I explore what it means to land in the critical zone and situate ourselves within what Haraway calls the Plantationocene. I situate Puerto Rico as a microcosm of the living wholeness of the Earth. I approached uncovering stories of the earthbound as a way to discover a world where colonialism, neoliberalism and racism have led to environmental degradation, food insecurity, and poverty. By placing Bruno Latour’s arguments for a new political landscape in dialogue with post-qualitative inquiry, I hope to gain insight into the world in a different way, one that acknowledges the intricate nature of the connections between the social and the ecological. Connections that cannot be unravelled into neat and easy to follow strands of cause and effect but are tangled and knotted, allowing for multiple entry points into ideas of becoming Terrestrial. I approach stories as a way of being in continuous dialogue with the self and the surrounding world. What stories do ecological farms tell us about collaborative engagement in a multi-species organisation? Not as an attempt to provide solutions or definitive answers for how organisations should orient themselves but rather as an uncovering of the possibility of exploring new ways of thinking and doing.

[pt] A pesquisa investiga o estatuto das fabulações na criação de transformações individuais e coletivas multiespécie no contexto da emergência climática (e suas interseccionalidades), com foco em histórias criadas por mulheres. Investiga-se um conjunto selecionado de criações artísticas que poderiam ser ditas simpoiéticas, nos termos de Donna Haraway, e que se mostram capazes de deslocar lógicas, disposições e sensibilidades arraigadamente em curso no contexto do Antropoceno. A investigação parte de um estudo do conto Estórias de Camille, do livro Ficar com o problema:fazer parentes no Chthuluceno, da própria Haraway, buscando em seguida ocasiões de cotejo e contágio entre essa história (em certo sentido inaugural) e duas outras fabulações: a obra de arte híbrida Proliferações, de Fabíola Fonseca, e o filme Teko Haxy: ser imperfeita, co-dirigido pela cineasta indígena Patrícia Ferreira Pará Yxapy e pela antropóloga não indígena Sophia Pinheiro. Feito à luz do conceito de simpoiese, o exame conjunto das criações analisadas busca somar-se aos esforços contemporâneos de contraposição às narrativas antropocêntricas (falocêntricas, etnocêntricas, especistas), tanto em suas versões utópicas e salvacionistas, quanto em reações distópicas e apocalípticas. / [en] The research investigates the status of fabulations in the creation of multispecies individual and collective transformations in the context of the climate emergency (and their intersectionalities), focusing on stories created by women. A selected set of artistic creations is investigated that could be said to be sympoietic, in Donna Haraway s terms, and that are capable of displacing logics, dispositions and sensibilities that are deeply rooted in the context of the Anthropocene. The investigation starts from a study of the short story The Camille Stories, from the book Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene, by Haraway herself, then looks for occasions of comparison and contagion between this story (in a certain sense, inaugural) and two others fabulations: the hybrid artwork Proliferações, by Fabíola Fonseca, and the film Teko Haxy: ser imperfeita, co-directed by indigenous filmmaker Patrícia Ferreira Pará Yxapy and non-indigenous anthropologist Sophia Pinheiro. Made in light of the concept of sympoiesis, the joint examination of the analyzed creations seeks to add to contemporary efforts to oppose anthropocentric narratives (phallocentric, ethnocentric, speciesist), both in their utopian and salvationist versions, as well as in dystopian and apocalyptic reactions.

No description available.

Large carnivores play many vital biological, economic, and conservation roles, however, their biological traits (low population densities, cryptic behavior) make them difficult to monitor. Pumas have been particularly difficult to study because the lack of distinctive markings on their coats prevents individual identification, precluding mark-recapture and other similar analyses. Further, compared to temperate areas, research on the interspecific interactions of Central American felids is particularly lacking. I used single- and multi-season, single-species occupancy models and two-species co-occurrence models to analyze camera trapping and habitat data collected at eight study sites across Belize. Puma occupancy was positively influenced by jaguar trap success, understory density, canopy cover, and human trap success, and negatively influenced by stream density. Jaguar trap success was the best predictor of where pumas occurred, while prey species were not found to influence puma occupancy. Mean occupancy was 0.740 (0.013) and ranged from 0.587 (0.042) to 0.924 (0.030). Over time, puma occupancy rates were generally high (> 0.90) and stable. Puma occupancy was higher in logged areas, suggesting that current levels of natural resource extraction at those sites were not detrimental to the species. Co-occurrence modeling showed little evidence for interactions between the carnivores, suggesting that jaguars may be acting as an umbrella species and that conservation efforts directed at jaguars are likely to benefit the other carnivores, including pumas. Overall, these findings are positive for puma conservation, but human-induced land use change is expanding and further monitoring will give us insight into how pumas respond to human encroachment. / Master of Science / Large carnivores play many vital biological, economic, and conservation roles, however, their biological traits (low population densities, cryptic behavior) make them difficult to monitor. Pumas have been particularly difficult to study because they lack distinctive markings on their coats, making it difficult to identify individuals. Further, compared to temperate areas, there is little research on how cat species in Central American interact. To learn more about the habitat that pumas prefer and how they interact with other carnivores, I used single- and multi-season, single-species occupancy models and two-species co-occurrence models to analyze camera trapping and habitat data collected at eight study sites over multiple years across Belize. Puma distribution across the landscape was positively influenced by jaguar activity levels, understory density, canopy cover, and human activity levels, and negatively influenced by how wet sites were. Jaguar activity level was the best predictor of where pumas occurred, while prey species did not influence puma occupancy. Over time, these puma occupancy rates were generally high and stable. Puma occurrence was higher in logged areas, suggesting that current levels of natural resource extraction at those sites were not detrimental to the species. There was little evidence of interactions between the carnivores, suggesting that jaguars could act as an umbrella species and that conservation efforts directed at jaguars are also likely to benefit pumas. Overall, these findings are good news for puma conservation, but human-induced land use change is expanding and further monitoring will give us insight into how pumas respond to human encroachment.

Section Restricti is one of the last sections of the genus Aspergillus that hasn't been revised in the modern taxonomic era. All species are osmophilic, have simple morphology and they are mainly important because of the food, feed and seed spoilage, some of them also have negative influence to the indoor air. The section consists of seven species according to the last taxonomic revision from 2008 based only on molecular data. It currently consists of six asexual and one homothalic species. 126 isolates from the section coming from four continents were studied in this thesis, including ex-type strains. Revision of the section was carried out combining molecular phylogenetic analysis and conventional taxonomic methods. Modern methods of species delimitation based on multispecies coalescent model were used for the phylogenetic reconstruction. From the conventional methods analysis of morphology (macro- and micromorphology including scanning electron microscopy) and physiology (ability of growing in osmotic gradient and several different temperatures) was performed. Apart from the seven known species, eight new undescribed species were discovered. Majority of the new species belongs to the Aspergillus penicillioides species complex. Key words: Aspergillus restrictus, osmophilic fungi, species...

Imagining the English landscape as an assemblage entangling deer and people throughout history, this thesis explores how changes in deer population connect to the ways deer have been valued from 1800 to the present day. Its methods are mixed, its sources are conversations – human voices in the ongoing historical negotiations of the multispecies body politic, the moot of people, animals, plants and things which shapes and orders the landscape assemblage. These conversations include interviews with people whose lives revolve around deer, correspondence with the organisations that hold sway over deer lives, analysis of modern media discourse around deer issues and exchanges with the history books. It finds that a non-linear increase in deer populations over the time period has been accompanied by multiple changes in the way deer are valued as part of the English landscape. Ending with a reflection on how this history of value fits in to wider debates about the proper representation of animals, the nature of non-human agency, and trajectories of the Anthropocene, this thesis seeks to open up new ways of exploring questions about human-animal relationships in environmental history.

The lives of black-tailed godwits and farmers in the meadow landscapes of the Netherlands are closely entangled. While godwits and other ‘meadow birds’ have lived in around the human shaped meadows for many centuries and, especially in the first half of the 20thcentury, profited from farming practices, from the second half of the 20thcentury, their populations started to decline rapidly. Based on studies to the ecology and ethology of godwits, and interviews with farmers that work to save godwits and other birds on their land, this thesis explores the relationship between godwits and farmers situated in the meadow landscape through lively ethographic storytelling. Storytelling is a powerful method because it leaves open for multiple perspectives, without privileging the one over the other. Through this approach I aim to tell the stories of godwits and farmers alongside each other, in a way that gives individuals agency and presents their lives as meaningful. Through these stories I hope to engage readers with, and (re)connect them to, the lives of godwits and farmers and open up to a ‘capacity for response’.

This thesis investigates the ethical work British horse riders conduct in order to know their horses well. This ethical imperative emerges out of a changing equestrian context. A broadening socio-economic demographic of equestrian participants, with an increasingly female population, moves equestrianism further away from its military and elitist heritage, and towards more 'one-horse owners' who nurture the ideal of close, companionable, 'partnerships' with their horses. At the same time, an increasing number of options for horse care and riding style instil the owner with responsibility to act as their horse's agent in choosing well. One of the things that they must choose, from a commercialist sphere of options, is how to educate themselves and their horses in order to achieve true partnership. This market is fraught with critique and debunking, reform and invention. I describe how this relates to a broader neoliberal context in which the idea of 'real connection' is highly valued and nostalgically missed. Through this ethnography, I aim to bring the anthropology of ethics and the 'animal turn' in anthropology into productive dialogue with one another. This is no easy task, since the former is concerned with the human sphere of moral conduct, while the latter has implemented a substantial challenge to anthropocentric study and advocated a recognition of life 'beyond the human'. However, I find grounds for mutual engagement in investigating the role that reflective thought plays within intersubjective equestrian dynamics. Many authors within the 'animal turn' critique the Cartesian distinctions between mind and body, self and other, human and non-human, and advocate that we should be cautious of the forms of detachment they invoke. In contrast, I argue that the 'epistemological responsibility' involved in knowing the horse well requires a complex and highly particular mastery of the dualistic distinctions, rather than a negation of them. In making this argument, I also contribute to the anthropology of ethics an example of nuanced relatedness between embodied intersubjectivity, self-critique, and knowledge evaluation. I demonstrate ethnographically that horse riders critique and cultivate a number of ethical, epistemological skills: open-mindedness, management of real and non-real registers of speech, self-awareness and self-comportment, narrative competence, accurate sensitive perception and good 'feel' for the horse. I demonstrate that highly valorised experiences of 'true connection' comprise of moments where horse and human move in such harmony that a third-person reflective stance is redundant; no interpretative work, communicative repair, or self-assessment is necessary. However these moments are rare and fleeting, because in this context, relational skill is (self)critical skill, riders continually learn to 'feel' more detail, to evaluate more critically, and to better recognise subtle signs of disengagement and miscommunication. In sum, this thesis demonstrates that 'true relatedness' is performed as precarious within this particular classed, gendered and epistemological context, and mobilises this finding to contribute to debates in the anthropology of ethics and the 'animal turn'.