Augmented Storying: Forest Entanglements and More-than-Human Narratives in Children’s AR Stories

• In Event: Immersive Learning Environments

Abstract

This study explores how augmented storying—children’s storytelling supported by augmented reality (AR)—enables new relational engagements with the more-than-human world. Drawing on posthumanist and new materialist frameworks, we analyzed AR stories created by children aged six to seven during a forest-based elementary school project in Western Canada. Through ethnographic fieldwork and visual narrative analysis, our study shows how children’s AR stories intertwine with the forest and its elements, blurring the boundaries between the forest, media, and materialities. The forest emerges as an agent, guiding the children’s story events and ethical considerations. These forest entanglements demonstrate how augmented storying can animate ethical, imaginative, and situated ways of relating and knowing with the more-than-human, positioning children as co-narrators in multispecies worlds.

Authors

• Kristiina Kumpulainen, University of British Columbia

• Shima Dadkhahfard, University of Calgary

• Harini Rajagopal, University of British Columbia

• Melanie Wong, University of British Columbia

• Jennifer A. Vadeboncoeur, University of British Columbia

• Anne Michelle Burke, Memorial University