Green Urban Fables: The role of speculative fabulations in co-creating more-than-human urban visions

Abstract

Climate change is affecting cities globally, requiring cities to reimagine urban development. Significant attention goes to using nature-based solutions (NbS) for climate mitigation and adaptation. However, like other planning interventions, NbS have been critiqued for their anthropocentric valuing of non-human entities. Planning theorists have increasingly been looking at incorporating post-human understandings into planning and applying a more-than-human approach to planning. Art-based narrative participatory approaches have been getting attention outside of planning to provide this shift. One of these methods is speculative fabulation, a method in which the boundaries between real and imagined are blurred to allow for new imaginaries to emerge. However, planning literature has only just begun to look into shifting anthropocentric thinking, and little research has been done into the role art can play in planning processes. Through a workshop as practice methodology, participant observation, and semi-structured interviews, this exploratory research has aimed to understand further the role speculative fabulations can play within NbS planning processes to imagine more-than-human urban imaginaries. By doing so, this research aimed to contribute to the growing literature base on more-than-human approaches in planning and the role of art within planning processes, which in turn could potentially shift planning practices to include more-than- human ontologies and aid in climate mitigation and adaptation. It was found that speculative fabulation has the potential to contribute to bringing in more diverse values, experiences, and forms of knowledge into participatory planning processes, in part because it allows participants to use their creativity, sit with the not-knowing, and reflect on their own values and dreams. By applying the Nature Futures Framework (NFF), five key themes emerged from the workshop to give direction to NbS planning and theory, namely accessibility of natural spaces, locality of NbS, transformative change through NbS, social-ecological memory to take care of NbS, and community-focused NbS.