研究開始時の研究の概要 |
This anthropological research entails looking at the kinds of connections formed through touch between people and stray cats in urban Japan through a focus on TNR (trap, neuter, return) practices. By performing TNR to reduce stray cat populations, new kinds of relations are formed between the newly created "community cat," the people who care for them, and the neighborhoods and organizations in which they live. It is my goal to understand not just how the people involved conceptualize these cats, but how these cats's sensory position within urban infrastructure allows new possibilities.
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研究実績の概要 |
This fiscal year, which was extended for six months due to COVID-19 restrictions during the majority of the course of this fellowship, was the final period of this fellowship, and I was able to accomplish a great deal of final research for this project. In addition to continuing the efforts I made online to gather information and interact with individuals and groups working with outdoor cats and TNR operations, I was also able to continue my in-person fieldwork. I met with individuals and groups to discuss their continuing efforts with TNR. I was able to observe and participate with events before, during, and after TNR operations, and I was able to conduct more in-depth interviews. As part of my multimodal multispecies methodological endeavors, I not only recorded useful ethnographic encounters, but I experimented with editing software and rendering different modalities. While my goal was to experiment with new methodologies in order to capture nonhuman participants in multispecies ethnography, I have also been able to further efforts into multimodal methodologies relevant to other areas in anthropology. In addition, I presented my research during three different international conferences, where I received valuable feedback concerning my methodological experiments and research results, which I am using to write articles for publication and to finish my dissertation, which is based on this research project.
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