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Accepted Contribution:
Birds and bees: sniffing and caring across the molecular commons
William Tullett
(Anglia Ruskin University)
This paper sets out a conceptual framework for understanding interspecies chemo-sensory relationships in in environmental history: the molecular commons. It uses early modern beekeeping and early nineteenth-century avian conversation practices to explore this concept in practice.
Contribution long abstract:
The project that this paper is drawn from aims to trace the history of interspecies relationships mediated by smell from the seventeenth century to the present. In doing so it develops two key concepts. The first is the 'molecular commons', which describes the range of volatile organic compounds that are emitted by animals and environments as a resource for habitation, communication, and exploration mobilised by multiple species. The second is the chemocene, a chronological term that describes the period from the late eighteenth century onwards in which anthropogenic environmental change has been caused by the invention and use of an array of new chemicals. By examining a range of actors from anglers, farmers, and odour pollution experts to birds, bees, and fish, the project seeks to understand how the chemocene has transformed the material structure, human knowledge of, and the ability of species to engage with the molecular commons.