Dear all,

Great thread and please feel free to share your thoughts with us all -
rambling or otherwise!

I'm interested in whether there is a definition or boundary for how
when a bird is, or becomes, a 'moral' agent - forgive my ignorance of
the literature or nomenclature - I look forward to familiarising
myself with it more so that I can perhaps apply it to my work.

Would a bird's moral agency be related to a bird being a moral actor
or metaphor?

In Australia we have many instances where individual birds, and often
pairs of birds, are 'actors', for want of a better word, in myths and
legends of Australian Aboriginal language groups - sometimes there are
moral (in the broadest sense) aspects to their behaviour, sometimes
they are just benign - metaphors or characters equivalent to
particular moieties or kinship groups.

I'm trying to unpack this in the most general sense - but it can be
difficult when my data comes from the several hundred different
language groups, and a smaller number of cultural blocs, that were,
and in many cases still are, living on land across this vast land.

Any thoughts, help, advice, assistance or references on this subject/s
will be gratefully accepted.

Cheers and thanks,

Bob Gosford
central Australia

--- In Ethnoornithology@..., LoraKim Joyner
<amoloros@...> wrote:
>
> Dear Mann,
>
> Thanks so much for this reference!
>
> I wrote a long reply to Nancy privately on her question below for it
> kind of rambled. If anyone else is interesting in pursuing thinking
> about birds as moral agents, let me know and we can continue the
> conversation.
>
> In hope,
>
> LoraKim
>
>
> Maan Barua wrote:
> > Yes, this is a very interesting topic.
> >
> > I found this reference quite interesting in this regard:
> >
> > Proctor, J.D. (1998) The Spotted Owl and the Contested Moral
Landscape
> > of the Pacific Northwest. In Wolch, J. and Emel, J. (eds) Animal
> > Geographies: Place, Politics, and Identity in Nature-Culture
> > Borderlands. London: Verso. Pp. 191-217.
> >
> > Best,
> > Maan
> >
> >
> > On Sat, Feb 14, 2009 at 12:50 PM, Jacobs, Nancy Joy
> > <Nancy_Jacobs@... <mailto:Nancy_Jacobs@...>> wrote:
> >
> >
> > Dear LoraKim,
> >
> > Welcome aboard!
> >
> > Your post interested me a lot. Have you published anything on
> > birds as moral agents and subjects in an ethno-ornithological
> > study? If not, what sort of literature is helping you frame this?
> >
> > Nancy
> >
> >
> >
> >
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2/13/2009 6:51 AM
> >
>