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A case study in citizen environmental humanities: creating a participatory plant story website

Author

Listed:
  • Tina Gianquitto

    (Colorado School of Mines)

  • Lauren LaFauci

    (Linköping University)

Abstract

Public engagement in crowd-sourced science projects such as iNaturalist or the Audubon Christmas Bird Count is a long-established practice within environmental studies and sciences. As a corollary to these “citizen science” efforts, “citizen humanities” engages public participation in humanities research and/or with humanities tools such as creative writing, photography, art-making, or conducting and recording interviews. In this essay, we outline our work creating a citizen environmental humanities website, Herbaria 3.0, including our motivations, process, and theoretical underpinnings. This project draws upon the critical understanding within environmental studies of the importance of narrative and storytelling for fostering a connection and commitment to environments and nonhuman beings. Situated within the field of environmental humanities, our website solicits, collects, and archives stories about the manifold relationships between plants and people, inviting visitors to read, share, or write their own story for digital publication. The kind of environmental storytelling that results, we argue, can (1) enrich our conceptualization of attachment to places, (2) expand our notion of what “counts” as an encounter with nature, and (3) help us recognize the agency of individual plants. We conclude that similar citizen humanities projects are crucial to the ongoing work of environmental humanities and environmental studies at large, for it is through such public engagement that we can meet the cultural challenges that seeded, and the societal problems occasioned by, ongoing climate change.

Suggested Citation

  • Tina Gianquitto & Lauren LaFauci, 2022. "A case study in citizen environmental humanities: creating a participatory plant story website," Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Springer;Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences, vol. 12(2), pages 327-340, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:jenvss:v:12:y:2022:i:2:d:10.1007_s13412-021-00744-8
    DOI: 10.1007/s13412-021-00744-8
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Gabriel R. Valle, 2021. "Narratives of place: critical reflections on place-making in the curriculum of environmental studies and sciences (ESS)," Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Springer;Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences, vol. 11(1), pages 130-138, March.
    2. Chi-I Lin & Yuh-Yuh Li, 2018. "Protecting Life on Land and Below Water: Using Storytelling to Promote Undergraduate Students’ Attitudes toward Animals," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(7), pages 1-15, July.
    3. Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, 2015. "The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 10581.
    4. John Charles Ryan, 2012. "Passive Flora? Reconsidering Nature’s Agency through Human-Plant Studies (HPS)," Societies, MDPI, vol. 2(3), pages 1-21, August.
    5. Monica Gagliano, 2013. "Seeing Green: The Re -discovery of Plants and Nature’s Wisdom," Societies, MDPI, vol. 3(1), pages 1-11, March.
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