Jamie Litton | Professor Michelle Bastian | Situated Research Project | Summer 2024

UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND

ABSTRACT

This report investigates whether incorporating fairy tales (rooted in Western animist traditions) into landscape research could foster a non-human inclusive view of place. To address criticisms of Western human centric dualisms, such as the nature/culture and mind/matter divides, these experiments incorporate concepts from the environmental humanities that advocate for integrating Western animist ontologies into place-based knowledge. The results of these experiments are examined, evaluating whether these stories effectively center the non-human while exploring the sense of place or spirit of place which is often discussed in landscape architectural practice.

The methods implemented included analysis of fairy stories, mapping of selected spatial data, followed by walking and observation. These methods were selected for their potential to use fairy story data as a framework for exploration of the contrasting perspectives of the aerial view with the immersion of walking and observation.

Final analysis of these experiments suggested that, despite certain limitations, using fairy tales in place-based exploration has the potential to shift perspectives towards a more inclusive understanding of place. This report ultimately argues for the inclusion of Western animist stories in landscape research as an imperfect but valuable way of engaging with non-human inclusive environmental relationships.

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