Filming scientific entanglements in the Coorong: Epistemic emotions and sensations in regenerating the Coorong

This article contributes to scholarship concerned with the sensory and emotional aspects of science and how these might be better communicated to the public. The research team created six environmental communication films for Healthy Coorong Healthy Basin ( HCHB ), a Goyder Institute for Water Research project focused on regenerating the Coorong Wetlands and contributing to the understanding of complex ecosystems that incorporate both humans and nature. In these films, information about the region and its importance is interspliced with scientists describing their emotional connection to their jobs, as well as footage attempting to capture the sensorial experience of working in the field. Filmmakers asked several groups of scientists a series of questions which encouraged them to talk about their personal interests, feelings and motivations, as well as their research into regenerating the Coorong. This article uses visual analysis of the HCHB films to foreground the experience of epistemic emotions when interacting with the complex ecosystem of the Coorong and how conveying these experiences via the medium of film allows for a greater understanding of the role of emotional and sensory entanglements in the creation of science. While the films may not have conclusively enmeshed traditional scientific findings with these more subjective elements, our analysis nonetheless acts as a starting point to contest the marginalization of emotion from science and environmental communication.