Table of Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract i
Acknowledgements iii
Notes on Chinese Terms and Translation v
List of Abbreviations vii
List of Figures ix

Chapter 1: Introduction 1
1.1. A swift capital 1
1.2. The key argument 3
1.3. Theoretical framework 11
1.4. The storyline 37

Chapter 2: Fieldworking in more-than-human Beijing 39
2.1. Entering into the field through bird-watching 41
2.2. Making use of WeChat 44
2.3. A note on place: doing more-than-human ethnography at home 45
2.4. Visual research methods—working with photographs in the field 48
2.5. Ethnographic interviews 50
2.6. Arts of noticing 50
2.7. Delving into the forest of ethnographic happenings 54

Chapter 3A: Training a nature-watcher’s eyes 61
3A.1. Nature-watching as a learned visual skill 64
3A.2. Learning to kanjian more-than-human beings in Beijing 65
3A.3. Discussion 79

Chapter 3B: The visual training to guancha 81
3B.1. Learning to affect and be affected in the visual education 81
3B.2. Learning to guancha plants with advanced botanical education 85
3B.3. Plant morphology: learning to articulate a plant 87
3B.4. Taxonomic education: comparative observation and learning to be affected by differences 89
3B.5. Becoming a more articulated huayou in field trips 94
3B.6. Discussion 99

Chapter 4A: Everyday nature-watching in the city:
the example of shua yuanzi 101
4A.1. Knowledge practices in everyday urban living 105
4A.2. shua yuanzi as a mundane urban park practice 106
4A.3 Discussion 132

Chapter 4B: Recursive nature-watching and in-person
knowing of living beings 135
4B.1. In-person observations 136
4B.2. Recursive watching and in-person knowing 138
4B.3. The liminality of knowing, sense of wonder and well-being 143
4B.4. Discussion 148

Chapter 5A: Hierarchising bird-related leisure activities with the discourse of suzhi 149
5A.1. suzhi: a keyword approach to social distinction 152
5A.2. The coexistence of bird-related leisure activities in Beijing 155
5A.3. Making low-suzhi others with the rhetoric of
backwardness and public incivility 165
5A.4. Discussion 175

Chapter 5B: The suzhi-based evaluation of urbanites-avian relatedness and care 177
5B.1. Bird-keepers’ problematic care for birds 178
5B.2. The uncaring gaze of the camera 181
5B.3. Caring birds through cultivating distance 192
5B.4. Normalising multispecies care: ecological suzhi
and ecological civilisation 205
5B.5. Discussion 212

Chapter 6A: Collective observations of Beijing swifts—
a participatory watching programme 215
6A.1. Watching Beijing swifts together in Beihai Park 216
6A.2. Nature-watching as a recent form of
public participation in Beijing 223
6A.3.Citizen science or participatory watching? 226
6A.4. Discussion 238

Chapter 6B: The multispecies achievement of participatory watching 241
6B.1. The participatory affordance of the smartphone 241
6B.2. Affective dimension of participation between
Beijing swifts and Beijing urbanites 248
6B.3. Discussion 268

Conclusion 271

Bibliography 277

Appendix 1. The burgeoning industry of nature education in China 307

Appendix 2. List of Chinese characters 315