TY - JOUR AU - Santaoja, Minna AU - Torniainen, Jyrki AU - Komonen, Atte PY - 2023/05/20 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - Developing response-ability in human-wasp encounters JF - TRACE ∴ Journal for Human-Animal Studies JA - FJHAS VL - 9 IS - SE - Articles (peer-reviewed) DO - 10.23984/fjhas.120353 UR - https://trace.journal.fi/article/view/120353 SP - 120-146 AB - <p>Learning to live with unloved others is crucial in the ecological crisis. Unloved wasps are feared and disliked for their sting. Understanding of their ecological importance is increasing, however. Human-wasp encounters are changing with environmental changes, and strategies for multispecies cohabitation are needed. This multispecies study highlights features of wasp biology affecting human-wasp encounters and analyzes how conflicted human-wasp relations could be mitigated. The geographical focus is Finland, in the Northern boreal region. Biological analysis specified spatiotemporal aspects affecting human-wasp encounters: human and wasp habitats and preferences overlap ubiquitously. From a media analysis, we identified contextual strategies for living with wasps: exterminating, repelling, relocating, and giving space. Wasps do not receive only bad press – human-wasp relations are diverse and contextual. Knowledge of wasp ecology may allow for cultivating response-ability in multispecies encounters. Media provides information and narratives that allow reinterpreting wasp “aggression” as a vulnerable multispecies condition. Human-wasp encounters are corporeal and often preferably avoided. Therefore, methods that allow developing intimacy without proximity may be used for reflecting on human-wasp relations. One such method is crocheting decoy wasp nests. Human-wasp encounters could be mitigated by species-specific strategies that assess the risk involved. However, developing such strategies is difficult because wasps are often confused with other black-and-yellow insects.</p> ER -