Paper short abstract:

This paper explores young people's interactions with GoPros and microphones, going 'behind the scenes' of urban woodlands. Using walking ethnography and digital technologies, rich stories evolve from underwater and in the canopy - entangling humans and nonhumans in physical and digital relations.

Paper long abstract:

Dominant contemporary discourse positions young people as 'disconnected' from nature. Technology is often blamed; placed in opposition to nature. A growing body of literature, particularly within new materialist and post-qualitative approaches, intentionally complicates such binary narratives. This paper contributes to this body of literature, highlighting productive entanglements of young people, technology, materialities and nonhumans in outdoor engagements.

Critically reflecting on my ongoing PhD project, researching with young people in urban woodlands in Birmingham, this paper discusses the use of innovative methodologies (including walking ethnography, video and sound recordings and website co-construction) in examining interactions with(in) such environments. Presenting recorded excerpts of walking sessions, it draws on post-qualitative literatures to consider the role of the waterproof camera and the microphone in extending optic and sonic perspectives and in contributing to alternative educations. Stories emerge, entangling the sensory, physical and the digital. Told while walking, participants relate online videos to our engagements, bringing together pond algae, rusty underwater metals, decaying leaves and bugs found in tree trunks. They speak to the GoPro: 'What do you see guys? Comment down below', in direct dialogue with their imagined youtube audience, connecting their embodied interactions with the digital worlds they also inhabit.

This paper argues that technology and 'nature' should not be so easily placed in binary opposition. Instead, it highlights how young people connect environmental encounters with language and informal knowledge from online videos. As such, the human and nonhuman, the digital and the physical assemble to tell stories of and with the environment.