Killing the Silent Witness: The Benefits of an Authorial Stance as Interpreter in Future-focused Natural Biography

ABSTRACT

The traditional role of biographer as ‘silent witness’ has been replaced by a spectrum of subjective authorial points of view which include that of omniscient narrator and authorial fictional character. This essay argues that the lesser discussed perspective of ‘interpreter’ is more effective in scientific and conservation biographies which aim to elicit environmental engagement from the reader. It uses the interdisciplinary scholarship of environmental interpretation, which ‘involves translating the technical language of a natural science or related field into terms and ideas that people who aren’t scientists can readily understand’ [Ham. 1992. Environmental Interpretation: A Practical Guide for People with big Ideas and Small Budgets. Golden, CO: North American Press, 3] and examples from my own research into the life of Malaysian ecologist Dr Wong Siew Te to explore this perspective.

KEYWORDS:

• Biography
• interpreter
• fictious character
• sun bears
• conservation
• natural biography

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Sarah Pye is a Doctor of Creative Arts candidate at the University of the Sunshine Coast (USC), Queensland. Her creative non-fiction artefact, Saving Sun Bears, focuses on the life of Founder and Director of the Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre (BSBCC), Dr Wong Siew Te. Ms Pye met Dr Wong in 2012 when visiting orangutans in Borneo. This encounter led to a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between USC and BSBCC spawning numerous interdisciplinary collaborative projects. Ms Pye’s previous publication, a guidebook called Kids Welcome to Queensland (2009) led to her award as 2010 Sunshine Coast Small Business Woman of the Year.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by an Australian Research Training Program scholarship.