I, pajarero. A visual-autonarrative approach to citizen science

My work deals with the different biodiversity monitoring practices in Mexico City carried out by pajareros (the Spanish term for birders) and their relation with citizen science platforms such as eBird and iNaturalist. In these spaces, natural and virtual, amateurs, professionals, government officials, academics, members of community groups, ecotourism guides, environmental and curious educators come together with curators, professional researchers and big data repositories.

I resort to a qualitative methodology approach to register and analyze the visual elements of birding while documenting my own process in becoming one of them and learning what it means to develop the necessary skills to locate, observe and identify a bird in its natural environment as a hobby that also produces scientific knowledge. This process, I am convinced, is also a process of building an identity.