Urban Forest Stories
Exploring how to foster intersectional environmental belonging in the urban forest of Gateshead Riverside Park through storytelling
For humans and more-than-human kin, the urban forest is nature close to home – or home itself. Yet, engagement with and access to the urban forest is unequal. Quantitative data show that human age, ethnicity, health, and deprivation exacerbate this unequal access. Further research shows that solving this issue should focus on creating equitable access, which consists of distributive access, procedural access and a sense of access or belonging. Emerging research often focuses on achieving distributive and procedural access, which begs the question: where does this leave our sense of access? How does belonging in an urban forest feel?
This creative practice PhD aims to explore how to foster intersectional environmental belonging in the urban forest through storytelling. Collaborative place-based storytelling sessions in Gateshead Riverside Park in the North East of England allow for iterative explorations of different experiences of belonging in and of the urban forest. The intersectional environmental approach centres and amplifies the lived experiences of all participants, whether they be tree, bird, human, wind or any other more-than-human being. The sessions are multi-sensory invitations to engage with questions on place-based, temporal and more-than-human belonging.
The resulting anthology of co-produced urban forest stories offers insights into the intersection of urban forestry, socio-environmental justice and multispecies community engagement. Intersectional environmental storytelling allows space to phenomenologically explore shared experiences of belonging, as long as sessions prompt participants to think about the urban forest as interscalar, intersectional and interconnected. This new approach to inclusive (more-than-human) community engagement supports fair, healthy and resilient urban forest planning, design and management.
keywords
inclusive urban forests
intersectional environmentalism
sense of belonging
experts from lived experience
more-than-human community engagement
Supervisors
Funding and support
This PhD research on intersectional belonging and the resulting Urban Forest Stories are supported by partial funding of:
Newcastle University | School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape: Forshaw Award in Architecture 2022-2024
Newcastle University | Institute of Social Science: HaSS Pioneer Award 2023
Newcastle University | Jobs on Campus: Research Assistancy Grant 2023
The storytelling sessions in Newcastle upon Tyne and Gateshead, England, are organised in collaboration with:
Kazusa Hayashi, MLA
Copyright
The research project is not-for-profit, with the results shared on an open-access basis. All are welcome to use the materials and amend prompts to their needs, as long as the source material is appropriately referenced.
Expected submission
March 2025