Multispecies Ethnography in Design Research and Practice

In this chapter, we introduce the approach of multispecies ethnography and provide examples of methods that can be used within this approach. Ethnography involves immersing yourself in a particular community to closely observe their behaviour and interactions to make sense of their culture, to understand how its members make sense of the world. Multispecies ethnography extends the framing of “community” and “culture” to include the whole more-than-human world (e.g. animals, plants, microbes, materials, technologies). Hence, who and what the researcher observes and views as significant in a culture and community, and the related sense-making, expands.Ethnography is a research methodology that utilises varied methods. There is thus not one method that can be used universally, instead, it is important to creatively work with a diversity of methods and adapt and re-imagine them. In this chapter, we will introduce and critically reflect on a variety of methods that we have used as part of multispecies ethnographies. These methods are by no means a comprehensive list but should rather be seen as examples and starting points for how to work creatively and rigorously through methods based on observing one’s immersion in more-than-human relationships. We discuss a variety of posthuman noticing practices, for example, through listening, recording, and making to engage with non-humans. Specific methods addressed include perception walks; embodiment probes; biological empathy maps, the application of naturalist practices in the example of birdwatching and designing with plants in practice.