Bats in the City: Exploring Practices of Citizen Bat Conservation Through the Lens of Becoming-With Animal

Abstract

This paper explores practices of citizen bat conservation in the city through the lens of becoming-with animal. It draws on insights gained from practices related to bat conservation efforts through interviews and participant observation with bat advocates in the city of Groningen, Netherlands. We show how becoming-with happens and why it is significant to humans and bats. We argue that becoming-with is dynamic and contingent on the elements present in different human–bat networks, which comprise bodies, technologies, practices, forms of knowledge, and urban spaces and places and result in varied relations that bats and bat conservationists enter into. Also, we observed the various outcomes of local bat conservation efforts. We argue that each of these ways of becoming-with must be considered valid, and is needed, in the big picture of bat conservation efforts in the city.