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Focusing on narratives in both online and print media, this study examines what constitutes happiness through narratives related to urban gardens and discusses the characteristics of depictions concerning the healing power of plants and nature and the associated sense of well-being. 　　

Paper long abstract

In Germany, cultural practices that experienced a surge in popularity during the pandemic, such as urban gardening, continue to be subjects of interest. Germany is leveraging its cultural heritage as a strategic tool to achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11: Sustainable cities and communities. The present study explores how people in Germany connect through cultural heritage and how they achieve subjective well-being by sharing 'things, experiences, and spaces'. The concept of 'happiness' and 'contentment' as expressed through cultural heritage is referred to as 'happiness narratives'. This study aims to collect and analyse data from both urban and rural areas. I believe that horticultural practices, such as allotment gardening and urban gardening, should be considered part of the cultural heritage. This perspective is the primary focus of this study.

My lecture will focus on narratives in both online and printed texts, with particular emphasis on the discourse of protagonists regarding urban gardening and allotment gardens, as well as how they portray happiness within these environments. This study also compares these with traditional fairy tales such as those in the Brothers Grimm's Children's and Household Tales. This study aims to identify and examine descriptions of the healing power of plants and nature, as well as the associated sense of well-being, to clarify their characteristics.

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This paper explores Oulu’s historical centre–periphery position, examining how townspeople in the 19th–20th centuries perceived their city. Focusing on tar from Kainuu, the study highlights how a hinterland product shaped Oulu’s economy, identity, and narratives of centrality and marginality.

Paper long abstract

This paper examines the emergence, evolution and negotiation of the centre–periphery divide in long-term urban historical perspective by focusing on the northern Finnish city. While Oulu has for centuries been officially referred to as the economic, administrative and cultural centre of northern Finland, it has simultaneously been perceived from the viewpoint of southern power centres as a distant periphery – a marginal northern outpost of the realm. This tension between centrality and marginality remains embedded in local identity and discourse.

The paper explores how the inhabitants of Oulu themselves positioned their city in relation to the rest of Finland and to Europe during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. How did they define and imagine their city? Was Oulu articulated as a centre or as a hinterland – and through which narratives and practices was such positioning constructed or contested?

A key element in this historical centre–periphery configuration is the significance of tar. The tar exported from Oulu to international markets was produced in the forests of Kainuu, a region which – from an Oulu perspective – could itself be viewed as a backcountry. Transported across vast stretches of roadless wilderness, this “black gold” was refined and commercialised in Oulu, becoming the city’s most important export commodity. Thus, a product of the hinterland became the cornerstone of urban prosperity and identity. The paper discusses how this paradox – a city defining itself through resources extracted from its own periphery – shaped public discourse and contributed to the historical self-understanding of Oulu.

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This paper explores how bird calls shape urban storytelling, layering memory, emotion and place, and contributing to the evolving narratives of city life through sound and imagination.

Paper long abstract

Urban environments are often framed as spaces of human design and noise, yet they are alive with nonhuman voices that contribute to the city’s narrative fabric. Bird calls, piercing pavements and echoing between buildings, provide a sonic counterpoint to concrete and steel, offering moments of reflection, memory, and affective engagement.

This paper examines how urban birdsong functions as a narrative thread within city life, shaping the way people perceive and remember urban spaces. Through ethnographic observations, soundwalks, and folklore accounts, I explore how the songs of birds become woven into personal and collective stories, influencing emotional and imaginative experiences of the city. Bird calls mark time, punctuate daily routines, and anchor memories, creating a dynamic interplay between natural sound and human narrative.

By focusing on the audible presence of birds in urban storytelling, this study illuminates how nonhuman voices participate in folklore and memory-making, contributing to broader understandings of how urban nature mediates imagination, place, and emotion. It considers how soundscapes, like visual traces of nature, shape the evolving narrative of city life, adding depth and resonance to human experience in urban environments.

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Built in the 1960s–1980s, Kharkiv’s mass housing estates integrated extensive green spaces. Since the full-scale invasion, they have suffered destruction and environmental change. This paper examines how urban nature and commemorative practices respond to war within these Anthropocene landscapes.

Paper long abstract

Planned and built between the 1960s and 1980s, Kharkiv’s post-Soviet mass housing estates followed the modernist microdistrict model, which emphasised generous green courtyards, tree-lined pathways, and landscaped buffers as key elements of urban life. Since the full-scale Russian invasion, these residential areas have been under constant shelling, resulting in destruction, loss, and profound environmental change. This presentation examines how urban nature—both designed and spontaneous—appears in visual and textual narratives of Kharkiv’s damaged housing estates and how commemorative practices engage with the changing natural environment. Drawing on urban planning documents, contemporary media, and grassroots initiatives, the paper situates these housing estates within the broader Anthropocene framework to analyse how warfare transforms material and symbolic relations between people, nature, and the built environment. It also highlights the environmental effects of war—erosion of planned greenery, emergence of unregulated wild growth, and memorial uses of green space—linking post-Soviet mass housing to wider debates on urban heritage, environmental change, and the politics of commemoration.

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Through a detailed study of Alai’s re-telling of the Gesar epic, this paper examines how contemporary Tibetan folk narratives frame the urban landscape as the destroyer of traditional Tibetan lifeways.

Paper long abstract

Through a study of Alai’s re-telling of the Gesar epic, this paper examines how contemporary Tibetan folk narratives frame the urban landscape as the destroyer of traditional lifeways. A Tibetan author writing in Chinese, Alai retells the Gesar epic alongside the narrative of contemporary bard Jigmed in The Song of King Gesar (2009; English translation, 2013). Born in a rural village, Jigmed encounters the epic-hero Gesar in his dreams and begins reciting the Gesar epic in moments of ecstatic possession. As a result, Jigmed is quickly identified as a bard, or grungkan (Tib. sgrung mkhan). While highly respected in traditional Tibetan society, bards are also celebrated in the contemporary People’s Republic of China, where government policy identifies their work as Intangible Cultural Heritage and offers salaries in exchange for their talents.

As Jigmed’s fame grows, local Chinese government officials host him in increasingly larger cities, where he interacts with scholars, politicians, and Communist party leaders. However, as he travels further away from Tibetan regions of China and into larger cities, Jigmed finds himself losing the ability to accurately re-tell the epic. Gesar himself chastises Jigmed, complaining about the urban environs and asking how to return to his grassland home. Interwoven with the death of King Gesar himself, Jigmed eventually loses the ability to sing the epic entirely. As represented by the increasingly urban environments Jigmed moves through, therefore, King Gesar suggests that the Chinese government’s efforts to protect traditional Tibetan folklore like the Gesar epic is, in reality, destroying it.