Resultados de la encuesta dentro del caso de estudio

During my MA and PhD research, a substantial proportion of fieldwork time was spent participating with and observing the Thursday volunteers. I participated with them on an almost weekly basis for four years from 2010 until 2014, during which time I joined the staff and volunteers in whatever practical work was being carried out. I took part in woodland management tasks, such as; clearing rides and paths of fallen trees and branches; felling trees – including felling a thirty-foot oak tree with a hand saw, planting trees and digging ditches. I also spent ten Thursdays building a new bridge over the reserve’s eighteen

foot wide river, constructed both modern wire and traditional oak fences, burned waste wood in a kiln to make charcoal, and spent many days coppicing. One of the most rewarding experiences was hand splitting eight-foot long, ten-inch diameter oak logs for fencing. To split them we used wedges and when these were positioned skilfully the log split with a most rewarding hiss.

After I negotiated access to the Thursday volunteer group, the mechanics of carrying out a day’s participant observation of woodland management activities was relatively uncomplicated. I only had to arrive at the reserve at nine a.m. on Thursdays to be assured of a day’s participant observation. However, since it was important not to allow my data gathering to interfere with my acceptance as a volunteer, I followed, as far as I understood them, the conventions of the Thursday volunteers’ ‘game’.

To broaden my understanding of the social world of the reserve I also took part in any social activity in which the Thursday volunteers and staff engaged. Each year I took part in the volunteers’ annual Christmas visits to another reserve and the pub lunch that followed. I also spent many afternoons in a local pub after a day’s volunteering, with one or two of the volunteers, to chat about the day and reflect on our own and others’ involvement with the reserve and the Trust. The pub at this time of day was the venue for ‘after work pints’ where I had the opportunity to observe and, in some cases, get to know the local workers who called in after their day’s work. These workers were predominantly men who worked in the locality and often had longstanding ties with Horwood. They provided me with a different perspective from that of my informants.

As I participated with the Thursday volunteers, I also became aware that they were a small part of a much larger social network. To access this larger network I took part in as many of the wildlife events organised by the Trust as possible. Each year I took part in the reserve’s three a.m. dawn chorus walk that takes place on the first Sunday of May. I also attended the annual general meeting of the Trust, volunteer conferences and open days at other reserves managed by the Trust. Involvement in this way helped me get a glimpse of the staff and volunteers outside the confines of the reserve and broadened my understanding

of the place, and the roles of the staff and volunteers in their wider social networks. Taking part in such events also assisted me in contextualising the reserve in relation to local communities, and environmental and conservation movements.

By volunteering with the Thursday volunteers, I experienced the everyday life of the reserve that managed the reserve’s woodland. However, this did not give me access to participating in everyday activities that resulted in the acquisition of understanding and knowledge of the ecology and natural history of the reserve. That was mainly gained through surveying and monitoring the woodland and its wildlife. To access these areas of the everyday life of the reserve I participated in numerous surveying and monitoring exercises: I took part in a number of one-day surveys, a three-week nightingale survey, and two bat surveys that each took place over a two to three-week period. The length of the nightingale survey was determined by the need not to miss any night when they could be singing in and around the reserve, and the bat survey’s timeline was determined by the ‘life’ of the tracking device fitted to the bats.

Being known to the surveying and monitoring volunteers through my involvement with the Thursday volunteers was relatively unproblematic, especially with Ted continuing to act as my gatekeeper (the individual who facilitates a researcher’s access to a social setting), and by joining the various groups who carried out surveying and monitoring. However, although surveying and monitoring took place as part of a long-term programme of investigation, I discovered that becoming a participant observer was complicated by the way the surveys were organised and carried out by different groups.

I spent a great deal of time engaging in surveying and monitoring, however I did not establish the same degree of ‘connectedness’ with these volunteers that I achieved with the Thursday volunteers. My ‘connectedness’ with the surveying and monitoring volunteers after spending night after night tracking bats or seeking out nightingales was intense but ephemeral, and did not continue once the project was completed.

Participating in surveying and monitoring gave me access to the world of the staff and volunteers, and through these activities I also became to some extent engaged with the nonhuman world. However this was limited, and in order to deepen my contact and become with this world, I began to spend time exploring the woods and camping overnight. The primary difference between the immersive experiences of surveying and monitoring and camping was that when I camped I was, mostly, alone.

To experience the nonhuman world of the reserve as distantly from the social life of the reserve as possible, I would arrive in the morning and spend the remainder of the day walking in the woods alone. At night I would pitch my tent and attempt to sleep. I selected the campsites to suit my mood after being in the reserve all day. My behaviour was related to the season of the year: in early May I camped amongst the bluebells, in late May near the singing nightingales, and in October amongst the wild service trees. By walking, being alone and camping in the reserve I experienced the outdoors in a way that I had never previously experienced it and this provided me with an intimate understanding of the outdoors that had previously escaped me. My aim at the outset was to spend a twenty-four hour period in the reserve during each month of the year, but this resolve deserted me as the weather conditions deteriorated and the nights lengthened. I still have to reach my objective of the challenge of spending a day and night in the reserve during the winter months of November, December, January and February. I found being alone in the reserve’s woodland at night a cathartic experience that caused me to re-examine my understanding of being-in-the-world. The woodland at night was unsettling; in the darkness the balance between the social and nonhuman realm shifted as the human realm lost its dominance.