Mutual wariness of observed and observer makes attention a joint encounter

Evidence

Knowing my habit of feeding birds, Shoptaw pointed out that the line “Like one in danger, Cautious” is placed so that it could refer either to the bird or the speaker who offers it a crumb. To explain this, he asked me to think about how I must look when I’m approaching a skittish Crow or Crowson on my balcony with a peanut. It wasn’t something I had ever thought about, but when I did, I realized that both the crow and I acted “like one in danger, Cautious,” each almost frozen, completely focused on the other, affected by and adjusting to the other’s tiniest movements. — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 380

Categorization

• XREF: Extends Deep Listening’s figure-ground reciprocity into a specifically intersubjective, non-human encounter. — connects to: Joint attention depends on bidirectional attention circulation, not equality — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 248; Nonverbal relation can be established through a sign of shared inquiry — Édouard Glissant, Poetics of Relation, 630