Sara Asu Schroer Future project synopsis Arctic Domus
‘Pulling a bird from the sky’
An exploration of domestication through a consideration of trapping, breeding and handling practices within Canadian falconry.
Fieldwork in Italy, early stages in training of young female golden eagle
Fieldwork Wales, breeding station, Captive bred
Gyrfalcon foster mother feeds ‘her’ offspring
(courtesy of G.Campbell)
This future research project will contribute original material on the complex relationships that develop between falcons, humans, prey animals and their environments. This will be achieved through comparative ethnographic and archival research on the practices of trapping and breeding birds of prey within the context of Canadian falconry (archival research/ working with archaeological artefacts will also include Scandinavia and Russia as historically these were the regions in which the trapping of birds of prey has been largely practiced). Canada is an ideal field site for this proposed comparative study, as it is one of the remaining countries in which the trapping of ‘wild’ birds of prey is still practiced, in addition to being one of the pioneers of domestic breeding projects that produce captive bred falcons for falconry purposes. This offers a unique opportunity to compare the ways through which falconers engage with and relate to ‘wild’ and ‘domestic’ falcons through looking at the skills and knowledge involved in trapping and breeding practices, as well as the subsequent handling processes when accustoming the birds to the falconers home. This human-falcon relationship will not be analysed in isolation but as emplaced in a ‘meshwork’ constituted through socio-ecological relations with prey species, other predators and the environment. A special focus will be on falconry terminology and narratives that describe the character of birds and their behaviour as well as on the design/use of bird aviaries and traps which contributes to a renewed interest in questions of animal personhood and the ‘built environment’.
The theoretical framework of this project aims at a critical re-examination of the concept of domestication and the related categories of the ‘wild’ and the ‘tame’. The generated material will help to trouble and destabilise classic understandings of domestication in terms of human control, hierarchy and dominance as well as attempts of classifying animals into stark categories of ‘wild’, ‘tame’,
‘domestic’ or ‘feral’. Instead the project will explore notions of human-animal cooperation, mutuality and learning through which it will contribute to a more subtle and nuanced language that will help to describe the complexity of relationships that emerge when humans and non-human animals meet and live together in communities - be they spatially close or distant.
About me: After having completed my undergraduate studies in anthropology at the University of
Münster as well as the EHESS in Paris, I started my PhD research on the practice of falconry. In my research I am interested in exploring the complex ways through which humans and birds of prey become knowledgeable of each other and enter into cooperative hunting practices.