AtHome
Postdoctoral project on the histories of animals, technological infrastructure, and making more-than-human homes in the modern age
2022 -
The Barnacle Goose is one of the most studied migratory birds in the world and has a fascinating if fraught history of making her home with humans and human infrastructure. This project will uncover the histories of Barnacle Goose domestication alongside the evolution of smokeless powder – a type of explosive propellant found in bird nets, bird scarers and shotgun shells. I will follow her migration journey from the Solway Firth in Scotland, along the West coast of Norway, and finally to Arctic Svalbard, along the way answering the questions: 1) How has the revival of the Barnacle Goose population through her home-making practices with human infrastructure lead to her species becoming problematised as a pest, and 2) How is her co-evolution alongside smokeless powder now used against her in the form of bird scaring measures and, eventually, shooting. The Barnacle Goose is a rare success story at a time of mass species extinction, and this project will expand the definition of ‘home’ to consider broader questions of survival on a heating planet
Outputs:
2022: “Geese, Guns and Ghosts: Following the Barnacle Goose along the Solway Firth” – speaker at the Devil’s Porridge Museum speaker series
2023: American Association of Geographers conference in Denver, USA – “Avian Anthropocenes” (session organiser)
2023: Nordic STS conference in Oslo, Norway – “Animal Infrastructures” (session organiser)
2023: Wrigley, C. (2023). An explosive landscape: Arranging the Barnacle Goose on the Solway Firth. Journal of Historical Geography (accepted for publication)