Abstract :
[en] This proposal takes part of the 'nocturnal socio-spatial encounters and understandings between beings both human and non-human' panel and also touches on the Anthropocene or on nocturnal transgressions themes.
My presentation would first aim to show how the night becomes the territory of animals in the surroundings of the Bardiya National Park (BNP), what changes for humans and non-humans in this particular moment of twilight, notably at the level of senses and general activity. Animals become invisible and therefore more dangerous, while their senses become more acute, humans desperately cling to hearing, to their lights and arm themselves with carrying devices such as torchlights or flaming torches. The first are more awake than ever, while the second fall asleep after a day full of field work and the like.
I would then like to discuss the various human strategies in this nocturnal moment, to make animals visible and to protect themselves from them. There are preventive measures (fences, lamps, infrared cameras, locking up pets, staying together, building cement houses, etc.), defensive measures (rocks, flaming torches, stones, shouting, drones, etc.) and compensatory measures (giving lamps for the next time, financial compensation). Finally, protecting oneself seems to mean making the animal visible, this time or the next time, and generating fear in it, to fight against the fear it provokes. I could also mention the animal strategies (waiting, hiding, observing) obtained from ethological observations.
Finally, I would like to talk more about my methodology and the contributions of this dimension of my PhD thesis in anthropology. I work with sound and visual recordings, living as close as possible to the forest and its animals, not hesitating to go out in the middle of the night and observe direct and indirect encounters (via footprints, damage) between humans and animals. I also observe and study the behaviour over time of humans forced to stay awake several nights and days in a row as well as myself, being fully involved. Trained as a psychomotor therapist, emotions, feelings, senses and body tensions have a special place in my research.
If the theme of this conference leads me to look more closely at the issues of the night in this field and this research, I think that my work and this potential communication are both working towards a better understanding of the day-night articulation (what the night does to the day and vice versa), of how to make the invisible visible without the light, and in a general way, of the human-animal relations at night. The outcome of my thesis would be the setting up of an exhibition which would consist of a reconstruction of a specific place where humans and animals meet, in collaboration with geographers, ethologists, anthropologists and artists (illustrators, photographers, videographers). I would like to represent the space and make it "alive" with video projections, photos, extracts of letters written from there, objects, recordings... I imagine to succeed to materialize a "day" and a "night" space.
