| dc.description.abstract | This thesis examines how birds being ringed as a conservation effort, are represented in five selected articles from the Norwegian bird magazine Our Bird Fauna [Vår Fuglefauna]. The representations found in the magazine have been evaluated by conducting an Eco-Critical Discourse Analysis, with a phenomenologically inspired eco-philosophy as the normative framework. Rather than being represented as serving a conservational purpose, the ringed birds were represented as inferior, objectified artefacts - captured for the sake of being consumed as entertainment. The conservation effort of ringing birds and the hobby of bird watching were metaphorically constructed as one and the same. The bodies of the ringed birds were represented as satiations of children's and adult’s curiosity, as spectacles for public displays, as tools for constructing one’s bird watcher-identity and as objects of demystification. The thesis draws the conclusion that the representations of ringed birds in the articles analysed facilitate a destructive discourse. This discourse is not considerate of the birds as subjective beings, nor is it sensitive to the power relation embedded in human-animal interaction | |
