Caseta Refractions: Coordinating Natures in Conservation Practice

Anthropologists and scholars of science and technology have discussed the accuracy of describing “Western” societies as being underpinned by an ontology of unitary nature in contrast with the multinaturalism of “non-Western” ones. They have postulated instead that multiple realities are enacted by practices and made to hang together through various forms of coordination. In this paper I analyze how coherence is achieved in a natural protected area in coastal Peru and discuss its particularities vis-à-vis other proposed types of multiplicity. By observing a group of fieldworkers engaged in practices of direct observation, I focus on the use of the caseta, a perceptive device designed to approach birds without disturbance. Reflecting on this specific context in which this method is used, I argue that a refractive multiplicity emerges due to the interaction of institutionally differentiated perspectives that get entangled within the caseta.