MEDIATING HUMAN-NATURE RELATIONSHIPS: CULTURE AND INNOVATION IN URBAN POLICIES FOR FLOURISHING OCEANS AND GLOBAL WELL-BEING

Abstract

This poster synthesises how urban cultural and innovation policies can lead sustainability and regenerative practices through a focus on human-nature connection, on its inherent symbolic and relational significance. This approach holds particular promise for coastal cities like Barcelona, rich in historical ties to the sea and with a strong framework in cultural policies.

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MEDIATING HUMAN-NATURE RELATIONSHIPS:
CULTURE AND INNOVATION IN URBAN POLICIES FOR
FLOURISHING OCEANS AND GLOBAL WELL-BEING
LÍGIA OLIVEIRA, PhD
Designer, artist & researcher
ligiaoliveirastudio@gmail.com
1. INTRODUCTION
Cultural disciplines - arts, design and architecture - play a
role in global emissions: 45% arise from land management,
the production of buildings and overall manufacture,
including food (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2019). This can
change: and the ever-present, permeating qualities of
culture can significantly contribute to address these issues,
and to advance environmental policies from within.
Indigenous People’s knowledge inform us that climate
change results from a relational fracture between humans
and nature (Whyte, 2021); Celidwen and Keltner (2023)
consider that kin relationality and ecological belonging are
key concepts to address both within Western scientific
inquiry and towards societal and planetary well-being.
To varying degrees, we have nature embedded in our
culture, and this is an opportunity to work upon. Reframing
the illusive boundary between nature and culture might
include reconsidering culture and innovation as mediating
tools on our relationship to nature: in a technological,
material, and substantially, in an emotional sense.
Western society has been based on the separation between
nature and culture, with “natural/non-natural” concepts key
for productive separations of land uses: material extraction
(nature) versus urban territories (residential, administrative,
industrial, commercial, cultural, leisure…).
Global efforts on climate change have often kept the
separating paradigm between nature and culture, “natural”
and “non-natural”. However,
• We are nature - starting by our own bodies
• Cities are located in nature’s land, have air and water,
and other species co-exist with us here, daily
• Across geographies, ecosystems inter-relate to each
other: co-structured by humans, other species and
elements, such as water.
Making full use of sustainable and regenerative practices
acknowledges ecosystems interconnections and our
interdependence with other species: they care for us, and
we must care for them.
2. CULTURE & INNOVATION AS MEDIATION
Celidwen, Y., & Keltner, D. (2023) 'Kin relationality and ecological belonging: a cultural psychology of
Indigenous transcendence.' Frontiers in Psychology, 14:994508. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2023.994508.
Ellen MacArthur Foundation (2019) Completing the picture: How the circular economy tackles climate
change. https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/completing-the-picture.
Whyte, K. (2021) 'The Timing of Climate Change.' Conference presented at The Mind, the Human-Earth
Connection and the Climate Crisis, Mind & Life Summer Research Institute, June 2021.
REFERENCES
Behavioural and health sciences
Natural sciences
Cultural disciplines: architecture,
design, arts
Communities: local, Indigenous,
neighbours groups
3. BARCELONA FROM THE SEA
FIND
MORE
HERE:
Coastal cities, home to a large portion of the global population, face
heightened climate risks: sea-level rise and flooding, exacerbated by
coastal development. Yet, these cities hold immense potential for
outstanding social, economic, and environmental achievements
through cultural and innovation policies. With a symbolic connection
to the sea, coastal cities can leverage their unique position to foster
thriving relationships among citizens, species, and ecosystems.
Barcelona has historically used urban policies to improve human
health, reconnect the city with nature and transform its economic base
through culture and innovation.
Examples:
• Cerdà’s urban expansion plan (1859) innovative focus on citizens’ health, with a balanced design of multi-level
public green spaces with construction (“bringing the rural into the city”)
• The 1992 Olympic Games urban transformation connecting the city to the sea - further developed with the 22@
Plan, a symbolic key point in shifting the city economic base into a creative and innovative one
• More recently, the superblock programme weaved social and environmental dimensions within public spaces
Past practices are vessels, lessons to reflect upon and propel towards
possibilities that reconnect ecosystems and regenerate bonds,
physically and symbolically. Cities as Barcelona are in a privileged
position to leap us into an integrative, sustainable future.
• Culture, creativity, and innovation are crucial for social, economic
and environmental change
• Nurturing the emotional connection to nature and embracing values
that support a human-nature (regenerative) relationship can
accelerate the flourishing of humans, other species and ecosystems
• Culture is home to the symbolism, and the relational
• Cities, and coastal cities such as Barcelona, are well-placed to foster
existing cultural resources to regenerate the human-nature bond -
particularly, with the sea
• This benefits all: ocean and land ecosystems, humans and more.
Future paths to explore:
• Multi-level interdisciplinary approaches with both Western science
and local knowledge
• Different paradigms of complexity in understanding, decision-
making and design
4. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS