How we work
Our goal is to explore what we wear and how we act when we, as humans, do not position ourselves above and outside nature but alongside and within it. We aim to do research relationally with both land and the people living on it.
We are looking to challenge ourselves and the ways we traditionally do work, and to think through questions around who has power in such situations and what it means to give back. A big part of the project is to try out methods that open up these spaces.
Methods and concepts we work with
Relational accountability
Relational accountability is an Indigenous and decolonial approach to partnerships, rooted in the understanding that all relationships – between people, communities, lands, and knowledges – are reciprocal, interconnected, and interdependent.
Shawn Wilson (2001) uses the term to describe the honest accounting of Indigenous research in relation to the people their research refers to (and therefore establishes a relationship with). “As a researcher,” Wilson (2001) asserts, “you are answering to all your relations”: implying that your research ought to (1) know its relations and (2) gain knowledge “so as to fulfill [your] end of the relationship” (p. 177).
Reference:
Wilson, S. (2001). What is an Indigenous research methodology?. Canadian journal of native education, 25(2).
Access the article here (ojs.library.ubc.ca).
Ecoportraiture
What changes in research when humans are not the only beings whose voices, perspectives and agency are acknowledged? And how can researchers become accountable to more-than-human teachers, interlocutors and kin? Ecoportraiture is an emerging methodology rooted in the anti-racist and emancipatory tradition of portraiture developed by Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot and Jessica Hoffman Davis. It extends portraiture beyond the human, attending to the relationships between people, other beings, place and land. Rather than treating nature as a backdrop, ecoportraiture recognizes its agency and role in shaping ways of being, knowing and acting. Through careful listening, attention and relationship-building, ecoportraiture invites researchers to let the world teach them. It is therefore not simply a way of producing knowledge about a place, but a relational and potentially transformative research practice.
Suggested further reading
Blenkinsop, S., Fettes, M., & Piersol, L. (2022). Ecoportraiture: The Art of Research When Nature Matters. New York, NY: Peter Lang.
Lawrence-Lightfoot, S., & Davis, J. H. (1997). The Art and Science of Portraiture. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
See also the CIRCE website for further resources on ecoportraiture here (circe-sfu.ca).
Life Writing as an Ecological Research Method
Life writing is a research method to uncover new insights about the interrelationships between beings and place including with fashion and clothing. In it, the practice of using oneself as a site of enquiry is presented as a route to ecological understanding where finite, direct experience builds towards rooted, embodied, plural and relational knowing about how we live and how we respond to the ecological crisis. Throughout, the paper is supplemented with reflections from the practice of nature-clothing life writing. Read this article to explore the method further (tandfonline.com).