twitching 'deconstructed'

[Tim Allwood]

Oh boy

see http://www.freewebs.com/richbonser/birdingtwitching.htm

strap yourselves in for this:

a University dissertation on twitching. This is not a joke. I must send the whole thing to Pseud's Corner in Private Eye. When I think of the work I put into my dissertation I am left speechless.....

here's an appetiser:
The twitching culture has attained a societal structure based, to an extent, on the size of an individuals' bird species list and bird identification ability thereby 'detaching the individual from their place in the social structure (and loosening) the moorings of their culturally constructed self' (Jarvis, 1997: 37, in Edensor, 2000: 86).

there are lots of refs and quotes from those rigourous analysts of our po-mo times Oddie and Cocker too ;)

[Bluetail]

Well, whaddya know? We've been twitched!

Here it is, folks - what we all know about twitching, told in a way few of us would ever dream of telling it....

Since the article is evidently a précis I probably shouldn't judge, but am I alone in finding his ready acceptance of the printed word just a wee bit too credulous?

Jason

[Darrell Clegg]

I wrote my dissertation in 1986 under the snappy title
" A comparison of the information needs of professional and amateur ornithologists"

This was long before the advent of phonelines, pagers, mobile phones or the internet.

I have no plans to publish it, you'll be pleased to hear !!!!!! ;)


Darrell

[Bluetail]

On the other hand it's a great way... oops, sorry, I've just got to dash off and do some research at Wick.

Jason

[Swift]

Wow , after reading it I think I need a lie down!

[Andrew Whitehouse]

Haven't read through this yet but this is certainly not the first academic article on the subject I've come across. One that springs to mind is an article from Anthropology Today entitled "Airborne kula: the appropriation of birds by Danish ornithologists" by John Liep. I think it's available on the web but maybe only at a price. One might question the use of the term 'ornithologists' here, as it's basically about twitching.

Of course I could put a section from my thesis up here. Would you like to read my epic 'deconstruction' of 'The White-tailed Eagle at Knocklearach'?

[seb salas]

What a load of crap!
I hope he failed or at least got a 3rd!!!

[Tero]

I don't even run into birders that much. Maybe some places where they have observation posts set up. An alien culture to me, other than on line.

[Andrew Whitehouse]

What a load of crap!
I hope he failed or at least got a 3rd!!!

I'm inclined to agree with you seb but I have an inkling this is probably just what his lecturers were after so he probably got a first!

The thing that bothers me most is that he seems to have some good material (the quotes that he uses from interviews) but I don't think he uses it very well. If he actually focussed on what people were saying rather than merely using quotes as illustrations then it might actually be half decent (and at least readable). Like so much social science he pays lipservice to individuality and then proceeds to reduce dialogue to statistics and rather meaningless generalisations. The culture is in what people say and do but he seems inclined to march all this to the sidelines or reduce it to the blandness of generality. This might be more the fault of his subject than him though. ;)

I remember this guy also wrote a pretty poor article about Islay, which appeared in Birdwatch a year or so ago and is also on his website. I'm sure he's a nice bloke but I'm not too impressed with what I've read by him.

[Michael Frankis]

Agreed too, though I thought he did have some fair comments about its all being money now - so easy for a person with a large bank account and no birding skills to get a huge list, and so difficult the other way round.

But plenty of adult male Bos taurus cloacal product in the rest of it.

Michael

[Cuckoo-shrike]

Darrell, how about serialising your thesis in Palores?

[sparrowbirder]

I thought birding was a hobby, maybe it should become an Olympic sport like synchronised swimming!! Why is tax payers money being wasted on this load of s***!!!!!

[Bluetail]

What a load of crap!Sad person that I am, I didn't think it was! I reckoned the general tenor of his thesis was valid enough, though I did find myself wondering what the point of it all was. I didn't find it very deep. I assume it was for a first degree. Do PhDs in this discipline involve a viva? I can see bits where he might have found himself on dodgy ground.
Like so much social science he pays lipservice to individuality and then proceeds to reduce dialogue to statistics and rather meaningless generalisations. The culture is in what people say and do but he seems inclined to march all this to the sidelines or reduce it to the blandness of generality. This might be more the fault of his subject than him though.
Or, giving him the benefit of the doubt, it might be because the article is a précis of his thesis.
I thought he did have some fair comments about its all being money now
Actually they're his informants' points, aren't they?

I can't decide whether he's after a career as a business consultant (asking people questions and then telling them what they've told him) or a job in the civil service (all that indigestible use of the pompous passive - always a good smokescreen when you're on dodgy ground).

Jason

[seb salas]

Come on Sparowbirder, lighten up...it's Christmas!
Even though I agree entirely with you!!!
It seems to me as though this guy was out twitching a bit too much when he should have been in lectures studying Geography and threw this junk together last minute to scrape through.
I could of course be wrong!

[Surreybirder]

As an aside, I think that Oddie and Cocker are both well worth reading!
And I agree that the transcripts of some of the interviews conducted by Bonser might be interesting to read, too.
I wonder if he's a member of bf. Perhaps someone should draw his attention to this thread. He might value the right of reply... on the other hand, he might find it a bit overwhelming.

PS Some of the twitching tales on his site are quite entertaining!

[seb salas]

I hope he doesn't use BF. Because with all those big bloody words he uses I'm done for if he challenges me personally!

[Jane Turner]

I'm having trouble finding the will power to get through it all.

[Jasonbirder]

Well why not? If he can get away with it then I can`t say as I blame him....minimum effort - maximum return was certainly my philosophy (and most other students) at University - if i thought I could have got away with an essay on birds/fishing/drinking/girls/football I`d have been first in the queue. At least he`s doing a half decent subject (Geography) at a half decent university and not some worthless makeweight subject at some dodgy former college of FE!!!!

[Andrew Whitehouse]

Or, giving him the benefit of the doubt, it might be because the article is a précis of his thesis.

I reckon if this is an adaptation of an undergraduate dissertation (and I hope for his sake that it is) then it's probably near the full version, or at least it's roughly the length that most undergrad dissertations tend to be.

[Brendan T]

Fair play to all of you who've read the whole thing. This part of the introduction was as far as I could manage
"Twitching is a culture that is inextricably linked to nature, yet Cosgrove (2000) argues that a consistent dimension of culture’s conceptual history is its opposition to nature. However, culture is a complex and increasingly important concept and is best understood contextually and historically – with recent geographical thought challenging such an opposition, on theoretical, political and substantive grounds (Cosgrove, 2000: 145). "

[Jane Turner]

If you lot don't behave I'll subject you all to my thesis!

[Cuckoo-shrike]

Come on then Miss Whiplash - get your thesis out!

[Jane Turner]

It about 2000 pages of physics...well more physical chemistry

[Surreybirder]

It about 2000 pages of physics!
I can hardly wait!
(how about an abstract!?)

[Bluetail]

Hi Brendan.

Quite! I nearly lost the will to live when I got to that bit, but the it does get a little more communicative subsequently. I don't mind jargon when it's aimed at a readership that can be expected to understand it, but that's not where Bonser falls down. He simply fails to communicate lucidly. Plenty of other academincs are just as guilty, of course, but there's no excuse for it.

Jason

[Jane Turner]

I can hardly wait!
(how about an abstract!?)

It was way before the electronic age. I has the catchy title "Lyotropic Discotic Systems"

[Tim Allwood]

maybe I should point put that the author is a young twitcher with a sizeable list for his age. He might be a bit annoyed you haven't heard of him!

I shall refrain from commenting further aside from comparing it to walking through treacle.

Both Bill oddie and Mark Cocker are a thoroughly good read, as Surreybirder mentioned above, especially Cocker who takes things a step further with his tales of foreign escapades too.

[Jane Turner]

maybe I should point put that the author is a young twitcher with a sizeable list for his age. He might be a bit annoyed you haven't heard of him!

I shall refrain from commenting further aside from comparing it to walking through treacle.

Both Bill oddie and Mark Cocker are a thoroughly good read, as Surreybirder mentioned above, especially Cocker who takes things a step further with his tales of foreign escapades too.

I found the latter quite hard to read since he was clearly the last person to see a friend of mine alive..

[Bluetail]

It about 2000 pages of physics...well more physical chemistry
In my book some sorts of physical chemistry are infinitely preferable to others! Physics and Chemistry were my two worst subjects at school bar none - with Geography a close third!

Jason

[Tim Allwood]

Yes - I know what you mean. I know people who understandably still won't go near Tingo Maria in Peru because of past events. A lot of my initial birding circle who really fired my interests were from that ilk. (I was always 'Little Paxton' - remember him? - the car filler from NOTBB!
Will todays twitchers ever have a book like that to write......

[Andrew Whitehouse]

As I warned earlier, this is a short bit from my thesis and it's about birdwatching (sort of). Hopefully not a 'deconstruction' although maybe I'm a master of the art of reading too much into what people say! So for a healthy dose of adult male Bos taurus cloacal product, I give you:

The White-tailed Eagle at Knocklearach

Whilst I was living in Islay I was mainly known to people for two things – firstly I was a birdwatcher, and secondly I rode around on a bicycle. Often these two activities would coincide. This meant that I regularly got into conversations with people about birds and other wildlife. If I was not riding my bike then I usually travelled by bus and the local bus drivers seemed to be aware of my interest in birds. I had sometimes had good conversations on the subject with a few of them.

On a dreary November morning I was getting the bus up to Ballygrant where I was working. The bus driver was Neil, a local man perhaps in his late forties. I had never really talked much to Neil but I expect he would have seen me birdwatching as he drove about the island. As I was waiting to disembark from the bus, Neil said to me:

Is that White-tailed Eagle still at Knocklearach?”
I don’t know. I’ve not seen it myself but I heard it was seen last week. There’s quite a few Golden Eagles around though.
Oh yes.

I then disembarked from the bus.

There are a few factual points that should be added to this brief account. The White-tailed Eagle is a scarce wanderer to Islay, mainly from the re-introduced population further north, although it bred on the island until at least 1870 (Elliott 1989). Two days previously I had been told by a biologist who lived in Islay about a White-tailed Eagle at Knocklearach farm. He said that the bird had been seen by a group of visitors being escorted by Audrey Malcolm, the owner of the farm where I lived. Audrey went on to tell me about her sighting the following day. Neither of these two people indicated that they knew of anyone else having seen the bird.

As can be seen, I was part of a small and rather informal local network of people (mostly incomers) who reported interesting bird sightings to one another. I was not aware of Neil being a part of this rather small group. So a first point of interest in this brief exchange is that bird sightings were sometimes communicated through whatever social networks Neil was a part of. In this case it would be interesting to know what the source of the information about the eagle was for Neil’s network. It seems likely that other local people had seen the bird (perhaps even Neil himself) and felt it was significant enough an event to communicate to their friends, who also appreciated its notoriety.

More importantly my exchange with Neil was typical of the sorts of exchange that I had with people in Islay about wildlife. These exchanges were rather different to those that I normally encountered elsewhere. I was used to being seen as an expert by those I would describe as lay people. If someone wanted to engage me in conversation about birds they would typically ask a question such as, “Have you seen anything interesting?” In such a question the speaker usually acknowledges deference to a greater knowledge of the subject on my part. I was almost never approached in this manner in Islay, except by visitors or by people who actually wanted to turn around the question and tell me about what they had seen. Instead exchanges about wildlife in Islay were characterised by the sort of question with which Neil began: “Is that White-tailed Eagle still at Knocklearach?”

The important point about Neil’s opening gambit was what he was communicating about his knowledge and the relationship of that knowledge to my own. He was opening the conversation on an equal footing, quite comparable to my own, even though it was I who was the ostentatious bird enthusiast. Although Neil was just engaging me in idle small talk about something he knew I was interested in he could have begun by asking a more deferential question. But like many I encountered in Islay he preferred to address me from a position of equality regarding our grasp of the subject of wildlife, at least when it was associated with the island. This he achieved by asking a question that was specific and information-based, rather than a submissive, general and ignorance-based question such as, “Have you seen anything interesting?” The question further helped to keep the two of us on an equal footing because I was restricted in how I could answer. There was no open-ended opportunity for me to show off an array of interesting sightings that I might have made. Both Neil and myself appeared keen to position ourselves in relation to Islay and the negotiation of knowledge within this brief exchange allowed this to be expressed. Neil began with an enquiry that proved his knowledge whilst raising questions of my own. I was able to show that I had gained enough contacts to give me access to information about certain events of import on the island. The outside was often seen in Islay as being ignorant of circumstances on the island but I was able to show some level of commitment and integration (c.f. Cohen 1987: 24).

One is left with an impression that this was not an exchange between a layperson and an expert but one between two equals. There were no overtones of submission and domination regarding the subject matter but instead relations were more contestable. Although this was a minor communication between two individuals of no fixed allegiance, it illustrates some of the recurring patterns of exchange that occurred between local people and conservation organisations in Islay. The contestations and assertions of knowledge that were writ large in the public arena filtered down to inform even mundane and informal exchanges. It is not surprising then that one of the most common complaints heard in Islay concerning conservation organisations was that ‘local knowledge’ of birds and other wildlife was ignored or excluded. Whilst I do not think Neil was exactly equating me with the conservation organisations, I did represent ‘outside knowledge’ that had come into the island. As such, I suggest that Neil, and others I encountered, were trying (perhaps unconsciously) to impress their comparable understanding of local wildlife in their exchanges with me.

[Surreybirder]

As such, I suggest that Neil, and others I encountered, were trying (perhaps unconsciously) to impress their comparable understanding of local wildlife in their exchanges with me.

Amazing how much you can read into one remark, Fifebirder! But of course it is true that local people often do have an impressive amount of knowledge about wildlife in their area.



Lyotropic Discotic Systems
Jane: What do discoteques have to do with physical chemistry?
If only I could find my paper on meteorology, written in the days when a computer as good as the average pc would have filled a large house!

[Jane Turner]

Jane: What do discoteques have to do with physical chemistry? If only I could find my paper on meteorology, written in the days when a computer as good as the average pc would have filled a large house!

They are liquid crystals....

[John Cantelo]

Hold hard, you lot! Give the poor guy some credit. There he is on some wretched Geography course and his tutor nagging him for a dissertation and he comes up with an excuse to go twitching. The man's a genius! Not only that he's clearly been able to come to grips with a mass of pseudo-intellectual jargon to cover the fact that the observations are banal, simplistic and shallow. Not only that but he wittily adds comments about how birders use language to exclude hoi poloi from the elect .... whilst doing precisely that in his dissertation to gain spurious academic credence. No don't knock the guy. He obviously sussed out the role he was expected to play and did it brilliantly. Don't blame him if the end result is less than convincing. Me? The best I could do was a BA dissertation on the New Forest - but then, as mine was a History degree, I think I did fairly well! John

[christineredgate]

I'm stunned.He even mentions trainspotters and anoraks!!.No ,honestly I had not read it when I mentioned these things on the Controversial subject thread.Some of the stuff he has mentioned certainly makes one think.A bit heavy going though.
I bet he "twitched " as it is called himself.I think one has to live the part to obtain any decent insight.Interesting though.
Christine.

[Doug]

I have never had to write a thesis but what strikes me on comparing Richard Bonser's with Fifebirder's is the language used.

Do you get extra marks for forcing your reader to make frequent references to a dictionary when perfectly good words exist in everyday English. Do students feel they have to impress the markers with their knowledge of complex terminology?

Fifebirder's thesis is so much more readable and as a result interesting and usable. I couldn't finish Richards - it was too much like walking through treacle.

You ought to get yours published in the Birdforum magazine, Fifebirder!

[Andrew Whitehouse]

Hi Doug,

And thanks! I tend to think that social science (and quite a lot of academic work) is mainly about good writing, although maybe not all social scientists see it that way. To be fair to Richard Bonser (which I haven't really been so far!) there may have been quite a lot of constraints on how he wrote his undergrad dissertation that he had to comply with and this may have made it difficult for him to write in the way he really wanted. It can also depend on the subject and I'm perhaps fortunate to study anthropology because it tends to be somewhat 'informal' in the way it is written (though I hope it's still rigorous). That said I've come across geographers who write very well and anthropologists who write like Richard. There are always going to be technical terms in any subject (just as there are in birdwatching for instance) but I think it's always possible to try and write clearly and engagingly whatever you're doing.

[Helwith]

It about 2000 pages of physics...well more physical chemistry
Pardon! how many words per page?

CB

[Rich Bonser]

To all,

It's so nice to see that you've all taken the time to have a look at my article on 'twitching/birding' - I think that many of you appear to have got more involved in it than I did when I wrote it.

As some of you have so rightly presumed - minimum effort, maximum result - it's the way of the capitalist world so why not apply this when writing a dissertation.

Whilst many of my colleagues slogged needlessly hard over their work, I was able to maximise socializing and birding time by producing some speel with vitesse to keep the old tutors happy.

Where are my interview transcripts?!! Can't find them at the moment... looks like i've lost them!

Ironically the end result achieved far, far higher than a third - you have to adapt one's style to the audience (in this case deep-rooted academics). At least you birders can see through some of the flaws.

But why did I whack it on my website... don't know!

Good birding to you all

Happy days


Richard Bonser

[Tim Allwood]

all credit to Rich for not overreacting and taking it in good part.

[StevieEvans]

SEE!

AFTER ALL THAT.......!

The Man himself says its a heap of B******t

B******t, but a good job done i suppose ?

It kinda sums up 2days world, as long as 'it' looks 'nice', then:- 'it'll do'

S

[Helwith]

Hi Rich,

It did the job that's all that matters;-) If people want to read gobbly gook about ornithology, I'd suggest reading 90% of the papers submitted to Ibis. Now they are hard work.

ATB & quite an impresive year list this year;-)

CB

[Bubbs]

[
Richard, Don't take any notice of them (some of them) Well done.

John.

[Tim Allwood]

minimum effort, maximum result has never been my philosphy for ANYTHING.

the point of the academic exercise is that you learn through the doing. If you do it half-arsed, you learn accordingly.

Sign o the times

[Elizabeth Bigg]

minimum effort, maximum result has never been my philosphy for ANYTHING.

the point of the academic exercise is that you learn through the doing. If you do it half-arsed, you learn accordingly.

Sign o the times

There speaks a teacher!! ;)

[Bluetail]

Where are my interview transcripts?!! Can't find them at the moment... looks like i've lost them!
Well, I must say that I am truly, deeply... I am afraid there is no other word for it...shocked! ;)

Jason

[Helwith]

minimum effort, maximum result has never been my philosphy for ANYTHING.

the point of the academic exercise is that you learn through the doing. If you do it half-arsed, you learn accordingly.

Sign o the times
What a load of [Take your pick]:C

CB

[Helwith]

There speaks a teacher!! ;)
Of what? What's the quote about teachers:

Those that do................................................ ....

CB

[Tim Allwood]

What a load of [Take your pick]:C

CB


and the point is what exactly CB?

did u have a bad teacher or something?

don't go off on an anti-intellectual rant

[Jane Turner]

That pic of John Lydon really put you off from having a go btw!

[Elizabeth Bigg]

Of what? What's the quote about teachers:

Those that do................................................ ....

CB

I think it is:

Those who can..........teach
Those who can't.........teach teachers
........and those who can't teach teachers become HMIs. (Her Majesty's Inspectors - I forget what they are called now).