Interspecies park life: Participatory experiments and micro-utopian landscaping to increase urban biodiverse entanglement

TY - JOUR

T1 - Interspecies park life

T2 - Participatory experiments and micro-utopian landscaping to increase urban biodiverse entanglement

AU - Knudsen, Britta Timm

AU - Stage, Carsten

AU - Zandersen, Marianne

PY - 2019/9/20

Y1 - 2019/9/20

N2 - This article analyses the design and outcomes of the research project Rewilding Lystrup, which involved a partnership with local authorities in Aarhus, Denmark, to merge two distinct processes: climate adaptation and the biodiversity transformation of a public park. Our key interest in the article is the potential offered by experimental participatory events to support the biodiverse transformation of public areas by creating micro-utopian entanglements of citizens and nonhuman organisms. The article will focus on three experimental participatory events enacted as part of the research project: (1) public dialogues and workshops, (2) the arrival on the scene of charismatic cows, and (3) pop-up events in the form of participatory playing. The article concludes that this kind of material citizenship is a powerful strategy for stimulating public engagement in building more biodiverse futures. The strategy thus materializes micro-utopian spaces where the importance of biodiversity can be rehearsed and sensed by local communities. In this way, a culturally transformative zone of dreaming while doing—or doing dreams—is enacted.

AB - This article analyses the design and outcomes of the research project Rewilding Lystrup, which involved a partnership with local authorities in Aarhus, Denmark, to merge two distinct processes: climate adaptation and the biodiversity transformation of a public park. Our key interest in the article is the potential offered by experimental participatory events to support the biodiverse transformation of public areas by creating micro-utopian entanglements of citizens and nonhuman organisms. The article will focus on three experimental participatory events enacted as part of the research project: (1) public dialogues and workshops, (2) the arrival on the scene of charismatic cows, and (3) pop-up events in the form of participatory playing. The article concludes that this kind of material citizenship is a powerful strategy for stimulating public engagement in building more biodiverse futures. The strategy thus materializes micro-utopian spaces where the importance of biodiversity can be rehearsed and sensed by local communities. In this way, a culturally transformative zone of dreaming while doing—or doing dreams—is enacted.

KW - biodiversity

KW - events

KW - material citizenship

KW - micro-utopias

KW - participation

KW - temporality

U2 - 10.1177/1206331219863312

DO - 10.1177/1206331219863312

M3 - Journal article

SN - 1206-3312

JO - Space & Culture

JF - Space & Culture

ER -