Exploring the "Good Meadow" Sensorically: Multispecies Ethnography, Ecological Knowledge, and Attentive Land Care in the Carpathian Grasslands

Abstract (English)

This study explores the intricate multispecies relationships shaping the Carpathian grasslands of Slovakia, drawing on sensory anthropology to examine the interplay between farmers, livestock, plant life, and the meadow itself. Through a sensory ethnographic approach, it investigates how farmers’ embodied knowledge—acquired through smell, sight, touch, and movement—guides their practices of care, sustaining both the land and its inhabitants.

At the core of this inquiry is the concept of the “good meadow”—an idealized vision of a grassland that provides security, sustenance, and biodiversity. Rather than framing sustainability solely through agricultural management, this research foregrounds sensory experience as a key factor in human-environment interactions. It reveals how non-verbal, sensory communication between humans, animals, and plants shapes local ecological knowledge and informs decision-making in grazing, haymaking, and biodiversity conservation.

Based on long-term fieldwork in three villages—Nová Bošáca, Liptovské Revúce, and Nová Sedlica—the study employs sensory and multispecies ethnography to examine how local knowledge supports grassland biodiversity amid shifting socio-political and economic landscapes. While pastoralism remains integral to rural livelihoods, livestock farming has undergone radical transformations, from socialist-era collective agriculture to post-1989 shifts in land ownership. Today, a combination of cooperative farms and small-scale farmers, some affiliated with ecological NGOs, manage largely leased land, blending historical knowledge with contemporary ecological concerns.

Despite the significant influence of social regimes on biodiversity, research in Eastern Europe has predominantly taken a natural-scientific approach, focusing on management techniques rather than the relational, sensory, and affective dimensions of human-environment interactions. This study challenges such reductionism, arguing that ecological knowledge is not merely strategic but emerges from ongoing, multispecies entanglements. Introducing the concept of attentive land care, it highlights the role of embodied, soft-skilled engagement in sustaining meadow ecologies and rethinks prevailing models of sustainable land use.

By demonstrating how sensory engagement—such as recognizing the scent of drying hay for optimal harvesting or using soil texture to guide grazing—enables adaptation to ecological shifts, the research offers a novel perspective on land stewardship. It ultimately positions sensory perception as a critical dimension of ecological understanding, advocating for a more integrated, multispecies approach in environmental anthropology.