To Catch a Cicada

A Case of Expert Listeners in a ‘Little Science’ Community

Abstract

This paper examines the role of tacit knowledge and embodied sonic skills involved in catching cicadas (Cicadoidea Latreille in the order Hemiptera) for scientific study in Australia. Cicada researchers rely on identifying the unique “call patterns” of male cicadas to locate populations and track individuals to net. Drawing on an ethnographic study of the authors’ own practices as cicada researchers, we demonstrate that cicada-catching involves tacit and embodied skills that are mastered in a community of practice that has a local epistemology centred on sonic skills for the multimodal production of knowledge. Through analysing their own cicada-hunting fieldwork, the authors demonstrate how sonic skills, as a form of active embodied knowing, enable the production of scientific knowledge.