Authentic Crows: Identity, Captivity and Emergent Forms of Life

For over a decade the Hawaiian crow (Corvus hawaiiensis), or ‘alalā, has been extinct in the wild, the only remaining birds living their lives in captivity. As the time for possible release approaches, questions of species identity – in particular focused on how birds have been changed by captivity...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Theory, culture & society culture & society, 2016-03, Vol.33 (2), p.29-52
Main Author: van Dooren, Thom
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Biodiversity
Birds
Conservation
Endangered & extinct species
Experiments
Hawaii
Identity
Intervention
Prisoners of war & missing in action
Studies
United States
Wildlife conservation
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Summary:For over a decade the Hawaiian crow (Corvus hawaiiensis), or ‘alalā, has been extinct in the wild, the only remaining birds living their lives in captivity. As the time for possible release approaches, questions of species identity – in particular focused on how birds have been changed by captivity – have become increasingly pressing. This article explores how identity is imagined and managed in this programme to produce ‘authentic’ crows. In particular, it asks what possibilities might be opened up by a move beyond relatively static notions of how these birds ought to be, towards more performative understandings of species identity. This shift in focus prompts us to ask how we might take up the task of learning to be part of these birds’ own experiments in emergent forms of ‘crow-ness’, so that we might begin to craft vital new forms of ‘polite’ conservation in this era of incredible biodiversity loss.
ISSN:0263-2764
1460-3616
DOI:10.1177/0263276415571941