Species, machines, machines: anatomy and reconfiguration of a biomonitoring project

• Main Author: Carlier, Simon
• Other Authors: Sustar, Helena, Veselova, Emilija, Taiteiden ja suunnittelun korkeakoulu, School of Arts, Design and Architecture, muo, Jalas, Mikko, Aalto University, Aalto-yliopisto
• Format: Master Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2022
• Subjects: STS; biodiversity; ANT; biomonitoring; design; sustainability; Tundra
• Online Access: https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi/handle/123456789/115006

Every Monday, a few selected humans wander in temperate forests, rainforests, and tundra to do the same tasks: changing batteries and memory cards, scanning QR codes, and shipping insects captured in ethanol. These people are part of the LIFEPLAN's biomonitoring network — a network assembled with dozens of humans, hundreds of pieces of equipment, supercomputers, and millions of species to uncover anthropogenic impacts on biodiversity. This thesis aims to identify the essential parts of this biomonitoring network and assess its potential in being used in cities. The first phase of this thesis provides a detailed description of the parts constituting this network using ethnographic material. The findings, structured using a theoretical lens inspired by the actor-network theory, uncover parts of the network at play. These parts consist of The Origins of the network, which define what gave the biomonitoring network its shape; The Keeping people together, which describes some of the strategies deployed for the network to preserve its shape; The Field, which details what happens during the weekly sampling; the Automated Species Identification which delves into the processes transforming data into species; and finally, the Theories and landscapes of species, that attempts to show how new ecological theories originate from the network's assembly of actors. The second aim of this thesis is to assess the applicability of such a biomonitoring network in Espoo, a city in Finland. The findings of the first part, combined with a workshop built around Espoo's environmental surveys, show that reconfiguring such a network in a city is not a straightforward process. There are significant gaps between the network described in the first phase and its hypothetical application in a city. Those gaps are human-shaped and include predominantly the lack of funding and human resources to run such a network. Reconfiguring biomonitoring networks is therefore limited by human factors rather than technical ones. These findings constitute a ...