Birks, Stephen J. (2018) The everyday life of a woodland nature reserve : an ethnographic study. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

This ethnographic study explores the ways in which a group of social actors participate in the everyday life of a woodland nature reserve, the relationships they establish with each other, the way they engage with the nonhuman materiality of the woodland and how they are affected by this engagement. An autoethnographic approach was taken which was based on the researcher’s immersion in the research setting. This made possible a deep understanding of the affective experiences of the research participants and facilitated an appreciation of the meanings of the woodland materiality for informants which were often ‘beyond words’.

The study focussed on a group of staff and volunteers and the everyday practical tasks that they engaged in which were mainly coppicing the reserve’s ancient woodland and ecological surveying and monitoring of its woodland and wildlife. These activities are central to the everyday life of the reserve and take place in the context of the environment and wildlife conservation cultural fields. They are conceptualised as core activities and generate fulfilment for those who engage in them.

The analytical framework used brings together the concepts of habitus (Bourdieu, 1997), dwelling (Ingold, 1993), and ‘becoming with’ (Despret, 2004; Haraway, 2008) and allows an understanding of how informants’ habitus (both general and specific) derived from the cultural fields they experienced during childhood and in employment, shape not only their participation in the everyday life of the reserve but also how this participation is experienced and their ways of being-in-the-woodland. These last are analysed as occupying a spectrum from an instrumental relationship, through becoming with and dwelling fleetingly to dwelling. Dwelling is associated with a woodland habitus.

One of my key findings is that involvement in the practices of wildlife conservation immerses social actors in a nonhuman woodland world that for most transforms their way of being-in-the-world.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GE Environmental Sciences G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GV Recreation Leisure H Social Sciences > HM Sociology
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Natural areas -- Social aspects, Forests and forestry -- Social aspects, Human ecology -- Social aspects, Habitus (Sociology), Wildlife conservation -- Social aspects, Ethnology, Human beings -- Effect of environment on, Environmentalism -- Social aspects, Leisure -- Social aspects
Official Date:	February 2018
Dates:	Date Event February 2018 Submitted
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Department of Sociology
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Charles, Nickie
Sponsors:	University of Warwick. Department of Sociology
Format of File:	pdf
Extent:	x, 253 leaves : illustrations, charts, photographs
Language:	eng

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