Trackable life: Data, sequence, and organism in movement ecology

Benson, Etienne

doi:10.1016/j.shpsc.2016.02.005

Cited by 19 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…In particular, it provides the evidence base for territorial claims in the form of new protected areas. Thus Benson (2016) shows how animal tracking not only changes understanding of the way the individual animals and populations use land, but also therefore conservation’s ability to lay claim to that land. American wildlife biologist Helmut Buechner studied Uganda kob (an antelope) in the 1950s, using tranquilizing darts and drugs, plastic collars, identifying tags, and moving films.…”

Section: Surveillance and Conservation Geographiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This ‘spatial-biopolitical expertise’ (Benson, 2015: 138) allowed him to demonstrate the territorial behaviour of the kob, and convert this into a conservation argument about the need for protected areas. The ‘territorial claims of endangered species’ could therefore be pressed in the face of competing land use demands, legitimated by other kinds of colonial scientific expertise (Benson, 2016: 137).…”

Section: Surveillance and Conservation Geographiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the last two decades, movement ecology has made significant contributions to conservation (Benson, 2016), supplying novel data used to increase the effectiveness of conservation action (Verma et al, 2016). Devices such as geolocators represent just part of a wider digital reshaping of conservation ideas and practice, involving monitoring, public engagement, citizen science, data analysis, and decision-support (Arts et al, 2015, Van der Wal and Arts, 2015, Verma et al, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Geographies of conservation II: Technology, surveillance and conservation by algorithm

Adams

2017

Progress in Human Geography

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The wide range of wildlife tracking and surveillance technologies (radio and satellite tracking, cameras, and audio) that are being deployed in conservation have important implications for a geographical understanding of care for non-human nature. This report explores four dimensions of their influence. First, their detailed view of spatial dimensions of non-human lives affects conservation's demarcation and control of space. Second, the application of surveillance technologies to people is central to the rise of coercive conservation strategies. Third, such technologies enable the creation and commoditization of spectacular nature. Fourth, spatial digital data enables the automation of conservation decisions, a trend described here as 'conservation by algorithm'.

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Section: Surveillance and Conservation Geographiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Surveillance and Conservation Geographiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Geographies of conservation II: Technology, surveillance and conservation by algorithm

Adams

2017

Progress in Human Geography

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“…From the 1960s onward, radio tracking increasingly offered new insights for ecologists, including into wolf population dynamics and behavior (Fuller, Mech, & Cochrane, 2010). Over the last twenty years, further advances in electronics, biosensors and GPS technologies have provided an even greater abundance of data (Fuller & Fuller, 2012), making most wildlife ever more trackable and quantifiable (Benson, 2016). For some ecologists, this capability is seen as vital to protect "biodiversity" (Takacs, 1996) which promotes taxonomic species as the fundamental biological, or ontological (Lorimer, 2015), unit critical to understanding complex ecosystems (Wilson, 1999).…”

Section: Human-animal Studies and Conservationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lupine Becomings—Tracking and Assembling Romanian Wolves through Multi-Sensory Fieldwork

O’Mahony

Corradini²,

Gazzola³

2018

Soc. Animals

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This paper outlines the fieldwork methods utilized by ecologists in (re)presenting wolves in Romania. By revealing the processes and performances of this aspect of wildlife conservation, the paper highlights the complex more-than-human assemblages that make up wolf ecology. It briefly discusses the ways HAS (Human-Animal Studies) and the social sciences have addressed conservation and unpacked the oft obscured hinterland of bodies and technologies. It then blends field stories and ethnographic narrative to emphasize the multi-sensory techniques employed in non-invasive wolf research. By using this novel case, the paper contextualizes the significance of concepts such as becoming, affect, and attunement in creating partial affinities between researchers and wildlife. It argues that these contribute to an emplaced knowledge that allows practices to adapt to contingencies in field. This is important when modern, remote technologies aimed at minimizing effort in the field are seen to be a panacea for monitoring elusive wildlife.

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“…Lippert, 2015;Turnhout et al, 2014), including through attempts to enumerate and track organisms throughout their lifecycles (cf. Benson, 2016;Gabrys, 2016). As Fortun (2012) has elsewhere noted, this can also lead to ways of 'informating environmentalism', where information technology and environmental problems are inextricably interwoven.…”

Section: Reconsidering Environmental Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Practicing, materialising and contesting environmental data

Gabrys

2016

Big Data & Society

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While there are now an increasing number of studies that critically and rigorously engage with Big Data discourses and practices, these analyses often focus on social media and other forms of online data typically generated about users. This introduction discusses how environmental Big Data is emerging as a parallel area of investigation within studies of Big Data. New practices, technologies, actors and issues are concretising that are distinct and specific to the operations of environmental data. Situating these developments in relation to the seven contributions to this special collection, the introduction outlines significant characteristics of environmental data practices, data materialisations and data contestations. In these contributions, it becomes evident that processes for validating, distributing and acting on environmental data become key sites of materialisation and contestation, where new engagements with environmental politics and citizenship are worked through and realised.

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Trackable life: Data, sequence, and organism in movement ecology

Cited by 19 publications

References 57 publications

Geographies of conservation II: Technology, surveillance and conservation by algorithm

Geographies of conservation II: Technology, surveillance and conservation by algorithm

Lupine Becomings—Tracking and Assembling Romanian Wolves through Multi-Sensory Fieldwork

Practicing, materialising and contesting environmental data

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