Walking with sheep, dancing with dragonflies: moving-with multispecies ecologies

Abstract

ABSTRACT Based on the authors’ fieldwork with sheep and dragonflies, this article explores multispecies methods as moving-with multispecies ecologies. Apart from being scholars, both authors are performance practitioners engaging with more-than-human environments. As a part of an art exhibition in 2015, Charlotte did a performative walk with a sheep for 5 weeks, intra-acting with the sheep and the other human and non-human animals inhabiting the heath, the weather conditions, the local visitors and media. Linda has been dancing by Utterslev marsh, a nature-culture area in Copenhagen, since 2020, exploring mo(ve)ments of connection with multiple bodies in the surroundings, including dragonflies. Performing multispecies research as a practice of relationality, the article takes shape as a conversation, evolving around three themes: moving-with multispecies ecologies; pace, speed/slowness and letting go; and entangled ethics and vulnerabilities. ‘Moving-with’ invites qualitative researchers to explore movement, speed and temporality in the entangled multispecies ecologies they become a part of.