Paper short abstract:

Sensing the world with and through an airborne creature draws falconers' attention to the powerful forces of the weather and the aerial currents of the world, revealing a world in constant formation in which the weather takes on material affective qualities.

Paper long abstract:

Falconry is a hunting practice in which humans and birds of prey learn to hunt in cooperation with each other. When training or hunting with a falcon, hawk, or eagle the birds cannot be forced to cooperate but a bond has to be established depending on a fine balance of independence and dependence. In this paper I will focus upon the ways through which falconers come to know and perceive their environments through the intimate cooperation with an airborne creature, who in so many ways perceives and acts upon the world differently to her earth bound human companion. Sensing the world with and through an airborne creature draws our attention to the powerful forces of the weather and the aerial currents of the world. The concept of weathering describes the weather as an ongoing activity that has a transformational force on how air currents and landforms interplay and co-create each other. It is further pivotal for mediating the movements of humans and other living beings that sense, perceive and experience in the midst of a weathering world. Here, air, land and water are not delineated into separated domains but co-constitute and transform each other in a constant confluence of movements. Falconers realise this and they do not usually talk about the weather divorced from practical contexts. Instead, their stories evoke rich situated descriptions set in the midst of activities of humans and nonhuman forces, emphasising a world in movement in which the weather is its ongoing effects.