Vinciane Despret - Living as a Bird

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Vinciane Despret

Translated by Helen Morrison

polity

Originally published in French as Habiter en oiseau © Actes Sud, France, 2019

This English edition © Polity Press, 2022

Epigraph from Nous sommes à la lisière by Caroline Lamarche © Gallimard 2019. Reprinted with kind permission of Gallimard.

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All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-4728-9

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Despret, Vinciane, author. | Morrison, Helen (Langauge translator), translator.

Title: Living as a bird / Vinciane Despret ; translated by Helen Morrison.

Other titles: Habiter en oiseau. English

Description: Cambridge ; Medford, MA : Polity Press, [2021] | “Originally published in French as Habiter en oiseau © Actes Sud, France, 2019.” | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021016407 (print) | LCCN 2021016408 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509547265 (hardback) | ISBN 9781509547272 (paperback) | ISBN 9781509547289 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Birds--Territoriality. | Birds--Behavior. | Birds--Research. | Territoriality (Zoology)--Philosophy.

Classification: LCC QL678 .D4713 2021 (print) | LCC QL678 (ebook) | DDC 598--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021016407LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021016408

The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.

Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.

For further information on Polity, visit our website: politybooks.com

For Donna Haraway, Bruno Latour and Isabelle Stengers

My thanks to:

Alexandra Elbakyan, whose tireless work in sharing and making available countless scientific articles made this research possible.

Stéphane Durand, who gave me the idea for this book, encouraged, supported, commented on and read my work with extraordinary generosity.

Baptiste Morizot, who gave the book its title, its momentum and many more invaluable things besides.

Marcos Matteos Dias for the melodic breathing.

Thibault De Meyer for everything he shares with me, for his notes which so pertinently understand and help others understand what matters, for his emails and his generous rereading.

Maud Hagelstein, not only for reading the manuscript with such extraordinary attention but especially for her enthusiasm and support, so precious in that perilous moment when you find yourself wondering if you should even have written it.

Isabelle Stengers, from the very beginning to the very last lines.

All the people who agreed to discuss my research and who often made me see things in an unexpected light: Serge Gutwirth and his team of researchers on ‘ commonings ’; my colleagues from the research centre ‘Matérialités de la politique’ at Liège University – in particular Florence Caeymaex, Édouard Delruelle, Jérôme Flas, Antoine Janvier and Ferhat Taylan; Sophie Houdart, Marc Boissenade, Élisabeth Claverie, Patricia Falguières, Élisabeth Lebovici from the Call it Anything collective; Tomas Saraceno, Ally Bisshop and Filipa Ramos.

Pauline Bastin and her decoys, Laurent Jacob, who reminded me about the disappearance of birds, for their welcome and their company.

Laurence Bouquiaux and Julien Pieron, for their interest and their friendship.

Roger Delcommune, Christophe and Céline Caron, Samuel Lemaire and Cindy Colette, and Lola Deloeuvre who, in one way or another, made my life, and Alba’s, so very much more comfortable while I was working.

My family, Jean Marie Lemaire, Jules-Vincent, Sarah and Elioth Buono-Lemaire, Samuel and Cindy once again, who supported me and reminded me that life is about more than just writing.

And Alba, for her infinite patience.

There are more things between heaven and earth (the realm of birds) than our philosophy can easily explain.

Étienne Souriau 1

It all began with a blackbird. My bedroom window had remained open for the first time for many months, a symbol of victory over the winter. The blackbird’s song woke me at dawn. He was singing with all his heart, with all his strength, with all his blackbird talent. From a little further away, probably from a nearby chimney, another bird replied. I could not get back to sleep. This blackbird was singing, as the philosopher Étienne Souriau would say, with all the enthusiasm of his body, as animals do when they are utterly absorbed in their play and in the simulation of whatever it is they are acting out. 2Yet it was not this enthusiasm that kept me awake, nor what an ill-humoured biologist might have called a noisy demonstration of evolutionary success. It was the sustained determination of this blackbird to vary each series of notes. From the second or third call, I was spellbound by what was transforming into an audiophonic novel, each episode of which I greeted with an unspoken ‘and what next?’ Each sequence differed from the preceding one; each was reinvented as a new and original counterpoint.