During my research stay at GIUZ, I explored how birds of prey are represented in historical written texts. The motivation for my work was a desire to understand how these raptors are represented in written texts and relate this to human behavior with respect to these species.

Although much is written about birds of prey, providing a snapshot of human perception and representation of non-human species, few studies have investigated such species representation within textual sources systematically. Ranging from fierce enemies to valuable agricultural helpers, raptors species are a compelling case study for investigating human representations. My research project aimed to identify nuances of “non-human charisma”, the “features of an organism that configures its perception by humans” (Lorimer, 2007) and variations in raptor’s depictions. To do so, I used a compilation of texts drawn from L’Éducateur, a Swiss magazine published continuously since 1865 for teachers in the Romandie, disseminating current and common knowledge on various subjects, including lessons and languages exercises on raptors.

Species charisma: Variation in species characterization across human narratives

In my analysis I found five groups of species attached to various landscape types and described through different body parts and behavioral traits, showing that human characterization of these species varies greatly.

From text to the identification of inter species relations

At one end of the spectrum, eagles, occur less frequently in the corpus, but when they do they are the focus of the articles, and often associated with reports of cattle and even humans. At the other end, owls, the most frequently quoted species, are seen as useful creatures and tolerated and sometimes encouraged near houses. This suggest that human perception of non-human species is influenced by the type of relationship, whether it be competitive or mutually beneficial, between humans and raptors. In future work I would like to expand my analysis to larger text corpora using computational methods developed by the Geocomputation Group who hosted me during my stay.