Alexander Badman-King - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Alexander Badman-King

Research paper thumbnail of Eureka and the questing beast : an essay on Meno's paradox and the problems of enquiry

Research paper thumbnail of Listening after the animals: sound and pastoral care in the zoo

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

In anthropology and across the humanities and social sciences, zoos have tended to be theorized a... more In anthropology and across the humanities and social sciences, zoos have tended to be theorized as places of spectacle. Scholars often focus on the ways in which these institutions enable the viewing of other-than-human animals by human publics. This article, however, uses sound-focused ethnographic fieldwork to engage with two UK zoos and to describe a particular mode of cross-species listening which is enacted by zookeepers. The concepts of pastoral care and control discussed by Foucault and applied to the zoo context by Braverman are productively reworked and reoriented in order to understand this form of listening. The article also demonstrates the interconnectedness of keeper, visitor and animal sound worlds, in the process generating an original perspective that complements and enriches conventional zoo studies.

Research paper thumbnail of Listening to the Zoo: Challenging Zoo Visiting Conventions

Ethnos

In academic discourse, zoos have often been conceptualised as places of spectacle, with scholars ... more In academic discourse, zoos have often been conceptualised as places of spectacle, with scholars focusing on the ways in which these institutions enable the viewing of other-than-human animals by human publics. This article, however, describes a set of guided listening visits conducted at two UK zoos. The visits were designed to question, disrupt and offer alternatives to ingrained zoo visiting conventions. They were also used to generate data on how sound mediates, or has the potential to mediate, relations between zoo visitors and zoo animals. The article describes the visits, reflects on their conceptual underpinnings and discusses themes emerging from participants' experiences. It demonstrates the relevance of listening walks as a research methodology and illustrates the complexity of sound as a form of multispecies entanglement in the zoo context. The listening visits are also shown to indicate potential directions for wider changes in zoo visiting culture.

Research paper thumbnail of A Preliminary Assessment of the Impacts of C-19 on Animal Welfare and Human-Animal Interactions in the UK and Beyond

Research paper thumbnail of Listening After the Animals: sound and pastoral care in the zoo

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 2021

In anthropology and across the humanities and social sciences, zoos have tended to be theorized a... more In anthropology and across the humanities and social sciences, zoos have tended to be theorized as places of spectacle. Scholars often focus on the ways in which these institutions enable the viewing of other-than-human animals by human publics. This article, however, uses sound-focused ethnographic fieldwork to engage with two UK zoos and to describe a particular mode of cross-species listening which is enacted by zookeepers. The concepts of pastoral care and control discussed by Foucault and applied to the zoo context by Braverman are productively reworked and reoriented in order to understand this form of listening. The article also demonstrates the interconnectedness of keeper, visitor and animal sound worlds, in the process generating an original perspective that complements and enriches conventional zoo studies.

Research paper thumbnail of Eureka and the questing beast : an essay on Meno's paradox and the problems of enquiry

Research paper thumbnail of Listening after the animals: sound and pastoral care in the zoo

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

In anthropology and across the humanities and social sciences, zoos have tended to be theorized a... more In anthropology and across the humanities and social sciences, zoos have tended to be theorized as places of spectacle. Scholars often focus on the ways in which these institutions enable the viewing of other-than-human animals by human publics. This article, however, uses sound-focused ethnographic fieldwork to engage with two UK zoos and to describe a particular mode of cross-species listening which is enacted by zookeepers. The concepts of pastoral care and control discussed by Foucault and applied to the zoo context by Braverman are productively reworked and reoriented in order to understand this form of listening. The article also demonstrates the interconnectedness of keeper, visitor and animal sound worlds, in the process generating an original perspective that complements and enriches conventional zoo studies.

Research paper thumbnail of Listening to the Zoo: Challenging Zoo Visiting Conventions

Ethnos

In academic discourse, zoos have often been conceptualised as places of spectacle, with scholars ... more In academic discourse, zoos have often been conceptualised as places of spectacle, with scholars focusing on the ways in which these institutions enable the viewing of other-than-human animals by human publics. This article, however, describes a set of guided listening visits conducted at two UK zoos. The visits were designed to question, disrupt and offer alternatives to ingrained zoo visiting conventions. They were also used to generate data on how sound mediates, or has the potential to mediate, relations between zoo visitors and zoo animals. The article describes the visits, reflects on their conceptual underpinnings and discusses themes emerging from participants' experiences. It demonstrates the relevance of listening walks as a research methodology and illustrates the complexity of sound as a form of multispecies entanglement in the zoo context. The listening visits are also shown to indicate potential directions for wider changes in zoo visiting culture.

Research paper thumbnail of A Preliminary Assessment of the Impacts of C-19 on Animal Welfare and Human-Animal Interactions in the UK and Beyond

Research paper thumbnail of Listening After the Animals: sound and pastoral care in the zoo

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 2021

In anthropology and across the humanities and social sciences, zoos have tended to be theorized a... more In anthropology and across the humanities and social sciences, zoos have tended to be theorized as places of spectacle. Scholars often focus on the ways in which these institutions enable the viewing of other-than-human animals by human publics. This article, however, uses sound-focused ethnographic fieldwork to engage with two UK zoos and to describe a particular mode of cross-species listening which is enacted by zookeepers. The concepts of pastoral care and control discussed by Foucault and applied to the zoo context by Braverman are productively reworked and reoriented in order to understand this form of listening. The article also demonstrates the interconnectedness of keeper, visitor and animal sound worlds, in the process generating an original perspective that complements and enriches conventional zoo studies.