Temporal and spatial detachment as care: An ethnography of urban nature conservation policies at lake Müggelsee, Berlin

Most research on care in more-than-human relations focusses on proximity, contact, attachment, and connectedness within communities. However, looking only at these aspects of interspecies care narrows the understanding of coexistence of more-than-human lives in cities. Based on such interrelations, the article suggests looking at ways of governing more-than-human life that helps regulate shared time, proximity and distance, attachment and detachment. It calls for the recognition of distance and detachment and their temporal dimensions as integral aspects of interspecies care in the urban context of species protection. This research focuses on lake Müggelsee in the city of Berlin, a site that is simultaneously characterized by intensive touristic use and species protection efforts. By examining reeds and black terns at lake Müggelsee as species targeted by conservation policies, the research highlights how more-than-human coexistence in this urban conservation area is characterized by an overflow of connectedness. Moreover, by conceptualizing spatio-temporal topologies of coexistence, the study investigates how conservation policies entangle with the rhythms, practices, and needs of more-than-human life at lake Müggelsee.