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The civics of urban nature : enacting hybrid landscapes

Karvonen, Andrew LU and Yocom, Ken (2011) In Environment & Planning A 43. p.1305-1322
Abstract
Urban nature is typically managed through top-down, bureaucratic, and expert-driven approaches that tend to rationalize and simplify the interactions between humans and their surround- ings. In the last few decades, there has been a significant push in cultural geography and the design disciplines to develop a relational ontology of urban nature, a perspective that emphasizes the hybrid connections between humans and nonhumans, built and unbuilt, social and natural. This perspective offers new and exciting ways of conceptualizing urban nature but it has not produced alternatives to conventional governance. In other words, thinking differently about urban nature has yet to produce different ways of interacting with it. In this paper we... (More)
Urban nature is typically managed through top-down, bureaucratic, and expert-driven approaches that tend to rationalize and simplify the interactions between humans and their surround- ings. In the last few decades, there has been a significant push in cultural geography and the design disciplines to develop a relational ontology of urban nature, a perspective that emphasizes the hybrid connections between humans and nonhumans, built and unbuilt, social and natural. This perspective offers new and exciting ways of conceptualizing urban nature but it has not produced alternatives to conventional governance. In other words, thinking differently about urban nature has yet to produce different ways of interacting with it. In this paper we argue that civic environmentalism can enact a relational ontology by engaging urban residents in processes of democratic deliberation and action in the reworking of urban nature. We illustrate this approach with a case study of a community-led project to construct a pedestrian trail along an urban creek in Seattle, Washington. The example demonstrates how the concept of civic environmentalism embraces a relational perspective of urban nature, while also producing generative forms of political action. (Less)
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author
and
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
in
Environment & Planning A
volume
43
pages
18 pages
publisher
Pion Ltd
external identifiers
  • scopus:79959965753
ISSN
1472-3409
DOI
10.1068/a43382
language
English
LU publication?
no
id
491ec0e1-e349-4b2f-92a1-9c591529e5d4
date added to LUP
2021-11-21 08:54:21
date last changed
2022-02-02 01:26:45
@article{491ec0e1-e349-4b2f-92a1-9c591529e5d4,
  abstract     = {{Urban nature is typically managed through top-down, bureaucratic, and expert-driven approaches that tend to rationalize and simplify the interactions between humans and their surround- ings. In the last few decades, there has been a significant push in cultural geography and the design disciplines to develop a relational ontology of urban nature, a perspective that emphasizes the hybrid connections between humans and nonhumans, built and unbuilt, social and natural. This perspective offers new and exciting ways of conceptualizing urban nature but it has not produced alternatives to conventional governance. In other words, thinking differently about urban nature has yet to produce different ways of interacting with it. In this paper we argue that civic environmentalism can enact a relational ontology by engaging urban residents in processes of democratic deliberation and action in the reworking of urban nature. We illustrate this approach with a case study of a community-led project to construct a pedestrian trail along an urban creek in Seattle, Washington. The example demonstrates how the concept of civic environmentalism embraces a relational perspective of urban nature, while also producing generative forms of political action.}},
  author       = {{Karvonen, Andrew and Yocom, Ken}},
  issn         = {{1472-3409}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  pages        = {{1305--1322}},
  publisher    = {{Pion Ltd}},
  series       = {{Environment & Planning A}},
  title        = {{The civics of urban nature : enacting hybrid landscapes}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1068/a43382}},
  doi          = {{10.1068/a43382}},
  volume       = {{43}},
  year         = {{2011}},
}