Planting and Podcasting: Methods for Reflection on Relations to Lands and Waters

• In Event: Reclaiming Relations to Urban Lands and Waters: Participatory Research With Black and Indigenous Youth

Abstract

Objectives or purposes
In this paper, we discuss the use of two unique methods - planting ancestral seeds and podcasting - within Project A. These methods were employed to engage Black and Indigenous youth in reflection on the intersections of climate justice and land education. Through planting, youth deepened relationships with ancestral seeds, while podcasting provided a platform for them to voice their perspectives and aspirations for just climate futures and land education programs.

Perspective(s) or theoretical framework
This project was guided by insights from land education and Black ecologies. Land education refers to practices of community-based out-of-school learning that Indigenous peoples have engaged in for generations, learning that happens while deeply situated in place. Land education also engages the more-than-human world as collaborators in learning. Black ecologies similarly focuses on more-than-human relationalities and invites future-oriented, liberatory world-making grounded in Black onto-epistemologies (Nxumalo, 2022). In this way, planting as a method was facilitated with the perspective of reciprocal learning with plants and more-than-human relations. Podcasting, rather than used as data collection, was used as a form of knowledge mobilization.

Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry
During the project, the main methodology used for co-designing the podcast was design-based research, a participatory approach that emphasizes collaboration with communities and practitioners (Collins, Joseph, & Bielaczyc, 2004). Working towards co-design of the podcast, 'Podcards' were used as a method for young people to engage with sounds of place, including soil, seeds, and waters. Planting was employed as a land education method that provided experiential learning for young people to connect with urban land throughout the project in the form of caretaking and reflection on their responsibilities and interconnectedness to more-than-human relations.

Data sources, evidence, objects, or materials
Our paper draws on recorded facilitated conversations with youth participants around the themes of climate justice, land education, and listening as a practice, as well as art in the form of protest signs where young people envision climate justice from the perspectives of the more-than-human world. Planting seeds and tending to what grew also provided evidence of young people’s capacities as caretakers of their more-than-human relations.

Results and/or substantiated conclusions or warrants for arguments/point of view
Our preliminary findings indicate that planting as a method facilitated young people’s curiosity regarding the climate crisis’ impact on the more-than-human world, particularly concerning plants and wildfires. Additionally, attending to seeds supported them in questioning the use of land and water in urban spaces, particularly buried waterways and polluted, inaccessible creeks. Young people also expressed enthusiasm for the opportunity to create a podcast that reflected their perspectives and theories of change. They documented what they heard, saw, and felt towards land and waters in the city and what these places meant to them. We found this to be a meaningful method that allowed time and space for reflection on youths’ dreams for climate justice and land education programs that served them.

Authors

• Jade Nixon, University of Toronto

• Kaitlin Rizarri, University of Toronto - OISE