Bat-human encounters
This thesis investigates the dynamic and multifaceted relationships between humans and bats in urban environments in the Netherlands, emphasizing how personal encounters with bats, experiences, and perceptions towards bats shape conservation outcomes. While urban wildlife conservation practice often prioritizes species-level management and mitigation, this research centers on the emotional, ethical, and spatial dimensions of human-bat encounters, which remain underexplored in the current field.
The study focuses on three distinct participant groups: bat advocates, residents, and students. It employs various theoretical frameworks, including. Actor-Network Theory is used to analyze the relationships between bats, humans, spaces, and technologies, and how these interactions shape urban conservation efforts. The Ethics of Care was employed to examine the roles of empathy, responsibility, and care in sharing living spaces with humans. Compassionate Conservation focused on understanding the factors that influence human-bat coexistence in residential areas, taking into account practical aspects such as design, conservation laws, property ownership, and the agency of bats. Environmental Literacy explored how affective education can help students understand, value, and advocate for bat conservation in urban environments. Using a qualitative approach, the research uncovers the dynamic interplay of emotions, knowledge, and spatial context, challenging traditional top-down conservation models and advocating for inclusive, multispecies urban conservation. The findings indicate that bats actively influence urban socio-ecological networks in the Netherlands. Human-bat relationships are deeply rooted in specific places and social networks and are shaped by perceptions of shared spaces, care practices around bat life cycles, personal engagement, and long-term commitments.
Ultimately, this thesis argues for recognizing bats as co-designers of urban spaces and partners in conservation efforts. By encouraging coexistence and more-than-human conservation strategies, it combines human values, bat agency, and place-based ethics, highlighting conservation as a relational practice. This approach opens new pathways for designing urban futures that consider not only human needs but also the diverse, shared lives that support urban biodiversity, making city spaces vibrant, dynamic, and alive.