ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Science of Birdsong in Central-European Modernity: From Field Listening to Scientific Evidence

• In Event: Listen: Sound Science Across Time 1

English Abstract

The paper examines the establishment of sound-based ornithological expertise in the Czech lands from the mid 19th- to 20th centuries. It shows the extent to which the nascent science stemmed from popular interest in birdsong and first-hand knowledge of bird catchers, and pays special attention to the ways in which listening in the field was translated into the category of scientific evidence. By doing so, it shows the complexity of feedback loops between sciences, humanities and non-academic forms of knowledge production, and contributes to the study of sound-based knowledge in the history of sciences.

Although the catching and keeping of wild birds became illegal in Central Europe in the end of the 19th century, bird-catching continued to serve as an important source of knowledge for ornithologists in the region well into the 20th century. With nature protection laws that banned bird trapping and fancying, however, listening in the field became the key tool of ornithological knowledge, and new ways of translating the experience from the field to the category of scientific proof had to be established. These included practices such as trained listening, expert judgement, sound visualization, and field recording. We attend to the evolution of the formal process, in which the veracity of field listening was recognized as a valid source of knowledge and show how historical association of listening with subjectivity and uncertainty directly contributed to the development of new strategies of dealing with probability in ornithology and field research more generally.

Authors

• Anna Kvicalova, Charles University, Prague

• Roman Figura, Charles University