燕窩為一種中華傳統美食,儘管人類「養」燕取其窩,實為在半開放的生產空間並仰賴燕音技術誘燕,屬「半野生-半畜牧」的養殖模式。本文藉由分析燕窩生產技術中的鳥鳴錄製與播放,探討金絲燕在馬來西亞燕窩產業中的能動性,及人燕互動的「聲景」如何重構「自然-文化」空間的重要性。有效的燕屋得以從依賴技術的人造空間,漸成為不需播放燕音的「自然棲地」。金絲燕的喜好決定燕屋成敗,人燕權力關係證成了扁平本體論的特定適用之處,而非普同的應用性。同時,燕音播放在不同脈絡中被人感知為「技術」或「噪音」,均涉及多重「聲景調度地景」的能動性及人類對「文化都市中的自然」的特定想像。本文強調非人能動性與聲景的概念,解釋「聲景」如何調度人與非人行動者,創造非二元的「自然文化」空間。燕窩產業曾是檳城喬治遺產城最棘手的議題,文化遺產的論述繼續鞏固自然與文化的二元對立,忽視兩者實為動態交織的狀態。此案例顯示在空間再創造的過程中,聲景的重要性不亞於地景,應是未來跨物種研究值得關注的面向。
Cubilose (swiftlet-saliva) has been seen as a kind of traditional Chinese delicacy for hundreds of years. Despite human practices of "farming" the birds and then using birdsongs to lure them into building new nests, swiftlets remain undomesticated. Humans can only invite the birds to show up and shuffle between "natural habitats" and "human-made habitats." This essay explores the agency of swiftlets and soundscapes in reshaping NatureCultures by analyzing the use of birdsong recordings to stimulate the human-and-bird manufacture of Malaysian cubilose houses. If successful, a cubilose house can gradually become a "natural habitat" and the broadcastings can be stopped. Largely determined by the birds' preferences, the swiftlet-human relations bespeak a kind of "flat ontology" that does not easily exist elsewhere. Meanwhile, whether humans perceive birdsongs as "technologies" or "noises" hinges upon the agency of soundscapes and people's specific imaginations towards nature in cultural cities. By highlighting non-human agency and soundscapes, this research examines how soundscapes draw and dispatch actors, both human and non-human, and create non-binary spaces of NatureCultures. We look at the tricky case of the numerous cubilose houses in urban Georgetown, Penang. The language of cultural heritage maintains a binary nature-culture opposition, which obscures the fact that the two are intimately intertwined in urban cubilose houses. In the ecosystem of the houses, soundscapes are as important as landscapes, and they can help reveal more about cross-species relations elsewhere.