The animal tracking’s agency

Why are camera traps and GPS collars new research agents in the interaction between humans and other animals ?

Abstract

There has been, of late, growing interest across the social and natural sciences in the potential of image-based methodologies to investigate embodied and affective more-than-human, multispecies lifeworlds beyond more traditional research methods that remain confined to mere human representations. Such methodologies could potentially contribute to the etho-ethnographic approaches that allow us to examine the lived experiences and cognitive responses of nonhuman organisms to human–nonhuman entanglements across locations, practices, encounters and traditional cultures. In what follows we will draw from different experimental projects and case studies to reflect on how and why the use of camera traps or other technologies like GPS collars transform research and research conduct. Similarly we will outline how animals themselves ‘see’ and adapt to modern technologies and the ethical implications of it.