Abstract

Drawing on video data and ethnomethodological conversation analysis, the study focuses on sequences of human action and interaction in which participants orient to small wildlife within their nature-related activities outdoors. The participants are family members, friends or participants on organized outings, and they engage in activities such as trekking, foraging and fishing. The study examines moments when small wildlife become the focus of the participants’ talk and other action and when the relationship between human beings and the natural world is thus constructed in situ. The study considers how participants in such moments display, pursue and achieve shared understandings about what the appropriate ways of treating other living beings and, more generally, conducting oneself in nature are.