Working with Nature, not against! How a socioecological network shapes the human-Nature relationships and informs ecological citizenship in a community in Switzerland

Abstract

Based on two months of fieldwork in a community in Switzerland, this thesis seeks to explore the interplay between ecological imaginaries, practices and subjectivities as they combine to form a larger socioecologic network. By analysing its complexities and fluidity, this thesis provides an account of how the network shapes community member’s different human-Nature relationships and informs various forms of ecological citizenship. Whereas the community’s main focus was on the social dimension, its ecological practices, specifically in the community’s permaculture garden, invited to challenge the conventional human-Nature divide and offered the opportunity to observe and experience more intimate relationships with other-than-humans by working, not against, but with Nature.