Paper short abstract:

Individual trees have deep meanings for people. How and why do certain tree-individuals become to be so important for human individuals? How do people create these multispecies relationships? We discuss trees as beings and places connected to life stories and worldviews of humans.

Paper long abstract:

In our research project "Trees Near Us" we examine bonds humans have with individual trees. In this transdisciplinary study we combine scientific and humanistic methods with arts. We use scientific data-analysis on interview material and ecocritical analysis on emotion-rich personal narratives and Finnish nature-writing, which enables us to create a vivid picture of the different aspects of human-tree-relationships: emotional, sensory, caretaking, spiritual and material. We also aim to surpass our anthropocentric perspective and observe these relationships from the tree's perspective with artistic methods. 

In this presentation we introduce characterizations of typical human-tree-relationships drawn from our data-analysis and juxtapose them with examples from peoples' real-life stories and Finnish nature writing. We specifically ask, is a tree an entity or a place? We reflect the spatial and creatural conceptualizations of trees in nature-writing and personal narratives. Trees as beings are non-human neighbors, companion species which are taken care of, they are species of friendship capable of empathy, but also uncanny more-than humans. Trees as physical places act as places of remembrance, everyday activities, or refuge. As physical places trees represent imaginary space connected to personal memories and life stories.

Hypothetically and speculatively, we ask, can trees be living time-machines and take humans to different temporal dimensions: to past and future, or even beyond their personal timeline? Can they help humans travel to other levels of consciousness, to their inner selves, a spiritual world, or the universe?