addressing social-environmental problems in place

Curtin University - Semester 2 2019.

Project Description

We start with the premise that the solutions to big environmental problems will be destructive if we continue to follow mainstream ways of making decisions. Our objective, following Deborah Bird Rose (1999:83), is “a practice of other-focused care that orients our attention into the here and now, and focuses it on living beings and environments, on the sacred and damaged places of the world today.” We aim to nurture an ethic of attentiveness to each other, place, and other species essential for finding ways to address environmental problems that are not themselves destructive.
We will engage with the concepts of place, landscape, and region in a process of seeking ethical ways to address environmental problems in place. At the start of the process, each of these concepts will be interrogated then used to analyse the deep causes of environmental problems and their legacies in contemporary understandings of humans, environments, and places.
The group will then receive technical training and work integrated learning combined with reflexive approaches to understanding local geographies. Students will receive training in qualitative and quantitative methods (in particular, ARCGIS), in how to integrate data. Students will work with Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal ecologists, community leaders, and geographers to build a sophisticated understanding of the site. The process culminates with a public planting at the end of semester where attentiveness will be practiced as we facilitate a group activity that seeks to draw together through practice geographical knowledge and an ethic of attentiveness.

Learning Methodology

The studio incorporates a range of learning methods across its 12 weeks:
• GIS (ARCGIS training, finding and integrating geodata)
• Participant observation of site
• Archival research
• Participatory methods (learning while working with other people on the planting)
• Noongar ontology and cosmology
• Ecological knowledge
• Event management (organising and running a public planting)

How does this studio match PlaceAgency Objectives?

This is multifaceted, experiential learning based around a multidisciplinary project that engages with Noongar worldviews and knowledge. The project aims to provide participants with the capacity to undertake environmental projects that engage with cultural ecologies in an Australian context, based around a pilot project at an Australian university.

Activities – Studio Outline

Activity	Description	Key dates for activities	Key learning objectives
Seminar	Readings and discussion of place, exploration of methods for understanding and analysing place.	29/7	Conceptual and methodological tools
Seminar	Readings and discussion of landscape, exploration of methods for understanding and analysing landsca	5/8	Conceptual and methodological tools
Seminar	Readings and discussion of region, exploration of methods for understanding and analysing region.	12/8	Conceptual and methodological tools
Seminar	Integration: bringing together the layers of landscape (with Greg Grabash) CAS staff participation	19/8	Conceptual and methodological tools
Workshop	Heritage studio: unpacking the layers of Fremantle (with Alan Kelsall).	2/9	Analytical skills and data synthesis
Workshop	More than human interactions: physical forces and other species The assemblage: conversation with A	9/9	Analytical skills and data synthesis
Workshop	Right to Curtin: land ownership and access Regions and networks	16/9	Analytical skills and data synthesis
Workshop	Human flows in space-time Plan for area finalised	23/9	Analytical skills and data synthesis
Workshop	Reflection: what and how do(n’t) we know? Planning for public talks and plantings	7/10	Analytical skills and data synthesis
Public Engagement	Public talk by Noel Nannup, students to run public planting	14/10	Local-global interactions Communication
Public Engagement	Public talk by Alan Pilgrim, students to run public planting	21/10	Local-global interactions Communication
Public Engagement	Public talk by Robert Eggington, students to run public planting	28/10	Local-global interactions Communication

Location Description

Curtin University

Location

I am enrolled in this studio, add me to the studio profile.

Studio Leaders

Tod Jones

Project champion

Marion Kickett

Partners

Allyson Mullane

Disciplines

- Geography (includes Planning and Education students)