Paper Short Abstract:

Using walking ethnography and memories, this paper examines the multispecies relationality shaped by living and working in steljniki. Drawing on the concept of slow disturbance (Tsing 2012), it acknowledges the agentive, co-constitutive roles of humans, grazing animals and common bracken.

Paper Abstract:

Using walking ethnography and memories related to mixed extensive farming, this paper examines the multispecies relationality shaped by living and working in steljniki. These distinctive patches of land, unique to Southeastern Slovenia, are characterized by common bracken and sparse birches, sometimes also spruce and juniper. Steljniki gave the landscape such a special appearance that, according to one explanation, the region even got its name from the white trunks of birches.

By paying attention to interspecies collaboration, this study acknowledges the agentive, co-constitutive roles of humans, grazing animals and common bracken in inhabiting and shaping steljniki. Drawing on Anna Tsing’s concept of slow disturbance (2012), the paper first traces the emergence of steljniki through grazing, bracken harvesting and bracken’s reproduction labour alongside topography and the composition of the soil. As Donna Haraway explains with her notion of sympoietic worldings: nothing makes (only) itself, but is always in making-with (2016, 58). Finally, the paper also considers the trajectory of abandoned steljniki. It was observed that the natural regrowth of hornbeam and oak forests takes 40–50 years after the abandoning of bracken harvesting. Once labelled as degraded land, actively maintained steljniki are nowadays valued for their biodiversity and some have gained recognition as cultural and natural heritage. Thus, in the case of steljniki, human and animal slow disturbances in fact sustained diverse multispecies life, yet the question remains what kind of work is needed from all living beings inhabiting the shared landscape for mutual thriving.

Paper Short Abstract:

Nomadic multi-species herds in Northeast Italy navigate unstable landscapes, shaping and co-creating ecosystems as they move through diverse terrains. This paper explores how these herds engage with rapidly changing environments, contributing to reimagining landscapes and challenging anthropocentric narratives.

Paper Abstract:

Nomadic pastoralism has been practised in the Friuli, Veneto and Trentino regions of north-eastern Italy for over 2000 years. Today, the three regions are home to several dozen large herds, each consisting of more than a thousand sheep, some goats, donkeys, dogs, herdsmen and women, shepherds' assistants and occasionally birds, insects, bacteria and viruses. These nomadic multi-species assemblages travel long distances in search of grass, and as they make their way through different landscapes and ecosystems, they leave their marks and traces - visual, acoustic and olfactory. Along the routes, the herds cross fallow agricultural land, suburban and industrial areas, nature reserves, scrubland, riverbeds and mountain pastures, actively shaping and co-creating them. They develop a distinctive perception and ability to read landscapes, tuned by their intimate knowledge and constant observation of changes as they move across different terrains. Their wayfinding responds not only to ecological rhythms, but also to local administrations and bureaucracies, national laws, European agricultural and conservation policies, global market pressures and the accelerating effects of climate change.

Drawing on ethnographic data collected while travelling with different herds over the past two years, my paper explores how multi-species nomadic herds engage with, co-create and narrate the rapidly changing landscapes and ecosystems of the lowlands and highlands of north-eastern Italy. In doing so, my paper contributes to the panel's call for a reimagining of landscapes and ecosystems that embraces the complexities and non-human interconnections of nomadic herds and challenges anthropocentric narratives.

Paper Short Abstract:

Through the analysis of two different cases, this paper will focus on truffle hunting in the wild and in truffle farms and how landscape can be reinterpreted and reimagined in both realities.

Paper Abstract:

Truffle hunting means seeking truffles in the wild or in a truffle farm. I present here two cases where local people engage with the landscape reinterpreting and reimagining it through truffle.

The first describes truffle hunting in the woods around Alba, Piedmont, Italy, the centre of the culture of the white truffle, as well as the Unesco protected vineyards landscapes, since 2014. The traditional truffle hunting practice in the local woods has been menaced since the powerful wine industry has destroyed almost the entire original forests. The inscription of the “truffle hunting and extraction in Italy” in the Unesco list of intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2021, doesn’t seem to work as counterpower for the hegemonic forces that have totally modified the landscape obliging the truffle hunters to hunt in inaccesible areas or to buy their own lands in order to create reserves to protect the woods and the truffle.

The second case refers to the area around the village of Sarrión, in Aragon, Spain, now the biggest producing area of black truffle in the world. The expansion of truffle farms has been modifying the landscape during the last thirty years from non productive land to “new forests” where trees have been inoculated with tuber melanosporum spores in order to produce truffles, now considered as the support to the economic growth of the area. These forests have to be considered as a reinterpretation of the Landscape made by the local inhabitants, who are both farmers and truffle hunters.

Paper Short Abstract:

The contribution will explore narratives and actions implemented by groups and individuals in navigating shared landscapes with bears and negotiating different ways of being in the more- than-human world in the village of Kuterevo, located on the slopes of Velebit Mountain in Croatia.

Paper Abstract:

Brown bear (Ursus arctus) is a strictly protected species in Croatia according to the Nature Protection Act and the Regulation on Strictly Protected Species. Brown bears in Croatia are part of a larger Dinaric-Pindos population, and together with bears from neighbouring Slovenia as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina make the westernmost stable population and represent the last possible source for the salvation of this animal species in Western Europe. This contribution will explore the narratives and actions implemented by groups and individuals in navigating shared landscapes with bears in the village of Kuterevo, located on the slopes of Velebit Mountain in Croatia. The focus will be on creative strategies (art, land art, creation of ceremonial places, animal burial grounds, etc.) performed in the landscape as acts of acknowledging, communicating, and reimagining close kinship of bears and humans, summoning solidarity and care within the local human communities, and negotiating different ways of being in the more-than-human world. These interventions turn locations such as the Mystic Place Forest and the (Cornu)Copia hilltop into places of re-enchantment, engaging humans with nature and spirituality.

Paper Short Abstract:

In my presentation, I will show how ecovillage residents reinterpret and reimagine the landscape in which they live. Ecovillages are community-based, socially critical, environmentally embedded, decentralised and relatively self-sufficient forms of rural life. Ecovillagers aim to operate an autonomous settlement causing as little damage as possible to the natural environment. These settlements are homes for not only humans but more-than-humans, too. One of the main elements in the ecovillage concept is space and localisation. Ecovillages raise many questions about space, place and identity: what motivates the ecovillage dwellers to change location and what critical elements are there? Do they experience real bonding with the new place? Do they belong to that particular land, the settlement, or rather than the ideology? What spatial practices characterise this type of settling down and how does the given ecovillage become a meaningful place and home for individuals? This presentation looks for answers in a Hungarian rural eco-community.

Paper Abstract:

In my presentation, I will show how ecovillage residents reinterpret and reimagine the landscape in which they live.

Ecovillages are community-based, socially critical, environmentally embedded, decentralised and relatively self-sufficient forms of rural life. Ecovillagers aim to operate an autonomous settlement causing as little damage as possible to the natural environment. These settlements are homes for not only humans but more-than-humans, too.

One of the main elements in the ecovillage concept is space and localisation. Ecovillages raise many questions about space, place and identity: what motivates the ecovillage dwellers to change location and what critical elements are there? Do they experience real bonding with the new place? Do they belong to that particular land, the settlement, or rather than the ideology? What spatial practices characterise this type of settling down and how does the given ecovillage become a meaningful place and home for individuals? This presentation looks for answers in a Hungarian rural eco-community.

Paper Short Abstract:

This paper addresses the creation of new narratives on more-than-human relations in the unstable, fluid landscape of the river Waal, the Netherlands. Through ‘unwriting dominant water discourses’, using arts-based and sensory methods, we seek to give expression to the unwritten affect and attachment to the city’s central body of water.

Paper Abstract:

Our paper addresses the creation of new narratives on more-than-human relations in the unstable, fluid landscape of the river Waal in the Netherlands. The Waal is one of the country’s largest rivers, flowing from Germany to the North Sea. It is vital for shipping and global capitalist economy yet unstable in terms of its seasonal waterflow and its response to climate change. In reaction to dominant anthropocentric hydraulic discourses that build on detached measuring and engineering to secure shipping and industry as well as human habitation and recreation, we search for alternative forms of human-river relatedness and ways of ‘unwriting’ and storying them, ways that also incorporate the volatility of climate change. We focus on citizens of Nijmegen, a riverine city along the Waal.

The paper presents a first sediment of our current study on how Nijmegen citizens interact with the Waal. What do these interactions tell us about the ways the river is part of their lives, and, in particular, meaningful in constructing their place-belongingness? How can we give expression to the unwritten affect and attachment to the city’s central body of water? Key in our approach is a joint ‘unwriting of dominant narratives’, which will be done by using arts-based methods like poetry and song writing, employing sensory methods in the river landscape, and through an interactive artistic installation in the city center. We present the collected new ways of storytelling that reveal the unsung dimensions of living with the river and its entangled landscape.

Paper Short Abstract:

Conservation in the Danube Delta, led by the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve, prioritizes ecological goals over human security. Locals argue that policies undermine livelihoods, food security, and sustainability, causing depopulation. This study calls for balancing preservation with community needs.

Paper Abstract:

Conservation efforts in the Danube Delta, managed by the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve (DDBR), are widely celebrated for protecting one of Europe’s most biodiverse regions. However, the narratives emerging from local communities challenge this idealized portrayal. Residents frequently describe these policies as deeply misaligned with their lived realities, citing restrictive regulations that threaten traditional livelihoods, undermine food security, and contribute to the region’s depopulation. Many argue that conservation programs prioritize ecological goals over human security, effectively marginalizing those who have coexisted with the Delta’s environment for generations. Villages such as Sfiștofca, once vibrant fishing communities, now stand as stark reminders of this crisis. With only 17 inhabitants remaining, Sfiștofca exemplifies the demographic decline that residents attribute to limited economic opportunities imposed by conservation policies. Locals contend that rather than fostering sustainable coexistence, these programs create conditions that compel migration and erode the Delta’s social fabric. This Fulbright-funded research "unwrites" the dominant institutional narrative that frames conservation as inherently beneficial, exposing its unintended socio-economic consequences for vulnerable populations. By amplifying the perspectives of fishermen and long-term residents, this study seeks to challenge the prevailing assumption that ecological preservation must come at the expense of human security. Instead, it calls for a reimagined approach to conservation that integrates environmental and human needs to sustain both the environment and the communities that depend on it. This reflection offers broader insights into the complex dynamics of environmental governance, rural depopulation, and the interplay between conservation and community well-being.

Paper Short Abstract:

This talk explores the management of Odra River in times of more frequent floods caused by approaching climate disaster. We argue that humans’ relationships with environment are based on dichotomy and separation from nature, which leads to attempts of controlling Odra, rather than co-existing with it. The change in perceiving and managing Odra can only be achieved by acknowledging the fact that more-than-humans co-create the river, and broader environment. This presentation is based on research conducted in Wrocław, Poland.

Paper Abstract:

In recent years we are experiencing a spike in frequency of climate disasters. The main cause of this is a long tradition of attempting to live in separation from the environment and believing that we as humans are independent from it. In our research which we are conducting in Wrocław, Poland we pay attention to the way in which city dwellers perceive the Odra River – how they think about it and behave towards it, taking into account the flood from 1997 and flood threat from 2024. It is also important for us to understand how flood protection systems and flood risk management of Odra River work, how they've been changing over the years, and how they are connected with the way in which we think about river, and broader environment.

Following Veronica Strang (2021: 407) we argue that imposing more material control over water flows does not lead to sustainable solutions. One of aims of our research is to present world as shimmering, which means composed of pulsating relations (Rose 2017). We believe that taking into account more-than-humans and acknowledging the presence and entanglements of various species with Odra is essential to stop thinking about river as just a resource.

In our talk we will discuss the way in which our interlocutors perceive the river, how government manages it and why it is important to think about Odra in terms of more-than-human sociality (Tsing 2013).

Paper Short Abstract:

This paper explores the transformation of wetland landscapes in postsocialist Poland, focusing on the shift from traditional agricultural practices to state-driven conservation efforts in the 1990s. Drawing on ethnographic research, it explores the tension between official and grassroots heritage narratives, highlighting the impact of these differing perspectives on preserving local taskscapes understood as cultural heritage.

Paper Abstract:

In postsocialist Poland of the 1990s, the state established three national parks to protect the wetland landscapes of the Biebrza, Narew, and Warta rivers. This period marked a radical transformation in local economies and agriculture. Land use methods essential for maintaining biodiversity (such as small-scale farming and hay harvesting) were rapidly disappearing. This shift and progressing symptoms of climate change have led to biopolitical interventions (Lorimer & Driessen, 2013) aimed at governing life, which has prompted a reevaluation of local heritage.

Official discourses reframed anthropogenic landscapes as “natural heritage,” positioning traditional practices as cultural relics—preserved in exhibits but increasingly detached from everyday life. This growing epistemological divide between “nature” and “culture” has reshaped heritage protection politics and supported narratives of a lost paradise where humans and non-human animals lived in harmonious interdependence.

Drawing on long-term ethnographic research in the three national parks and surrounding areas, this paper examines official and grassroots heritage interpretation strategies and explores their connection to land use practices. The study will reveal alternative narratives that challenge authorized heritage discourses (Smith, 2012) by focusing on home museums as repositories of intergenerational, more-than-human riverine knowledge.

Ultimately, the study seeks to answer whether wetland landscapes can be preserved apart from local taskscapes (Ingold, 1993; Gruppuso & Whitehouse, 2020) and explores what it means to protect taskscapes as heritage in this context. The paper also aims to highlight the diverse ways in which the wetlands have been experienced and valued amid environmental and economic change.

Paper Short Abstract:

In the course of rural exodus, a rich landscape-related storytelling tradition in the Icelandic Westfjords has begun to vanish. Out of an ongoing project combining archival and field research, the question arises: How will the narratives change when the landscape and land use change?

Paper Abstract:

The region of Strandir in the Icelandic Westfjords features a rich and living cultural heritage in the form of landscape-related storytelling. Apart from some extant medieval sagas partially set in the area, this tradition has mainly been documented since the 19th century, for example in folktale collections, records of the place name institute and audio recordings of interviews. Although many of these narratives are not fully fledged stories but rather snippets, when compiled and located on a map, they appear to fill the space between farms with places and place-lore. In the collective memory of the elder locals, the seemingly “untouched” landscape shaped by centuries of sheep farming is layered with history and filled with hidden inhabitants and anecdotes about the interaction of humans, other species and landscape elements. As these narratives are rooted in a specific environment, visiting the places mentioned in them often helps with understanding the stories, as several months of field research in 2023 and 2024 have shown. In the wake of the change in agriculture through mechanization and the ongoing rural exodus, a large portion of this storytelling tradition is sinking into oblivion. The landscape itself is changing, too: There are less sheep and more trees, some road construction is going on, a hydroelectric plant is being planned and in the north of the region, where most farms have turned to summerhouses or ruins, a protected area was designated in 2021. So the question emerges: How do landscape-related narratives change when the landscape changes?

Paper Short Abstract:

Based on my ongoing research following the process of creating a new city park, I examine how different ecologies coexist in urban areas. In the face of the climate crisis, the effects of which are increasingly felt in cities, many metropolises are incorporating green infrastructure into urban strategies. Previous urban wastelands are beginning to be transformed into new urban green areas. The role of non-human actors, especially plants in the city, is being noticed. They are starting to be used as "allies" in the fight against climate change. However, the question for me is - is this a continuation of the anthropocentric use of plants as a resource or is it an opportunity for new human-non-human relations in urban areas?

Paper Abstract:

Drawing on my ongoing research on the process of creating a new city park in Gdańsk (Poland) this presentation explores the intersection of different ecologies in urban space. I am interested in something that I call “green encounters” – encounters between various human and non-human beings that were initiated in connection with the creation of the park. There are frictions, negotiations, and collapses that show the conflicting interests of different actors. The park is being created on former agricultural land that is currently being built up as a result of suburbanization. The traces of different uses of land can be seen in the materiality of the landscape (i.e. presence of specific plants). In the project of the park, some of the green areas are planned to be left intact, some are intended as recreation zones, and a space for “natural” succession is also designed. The park will be constantly in the process of being created, its appearance is to depend on the natural succession process taking place in it. I examine existing and emerging human-plant relations, examining their nature and conditions. The fact of climate crisis indicates new visions of future green cities. Urbanists have started using Nature Based Solutions (NBS) and blue-green infrastructure. Non-human actors, especially plants in the city, are being noticed. They have started to be used as "allies" in the fight against climate change. Is it a chance for new more-than-human relations in cities or continuation of anthropocentric use of plants as a resource?

Paper Short Abstract:

During my examination of how the ruins of Bomarsund fortress became understood as a heritage, seeing it as a “lost place (Bauer & Dolgan 2020), helped to unwrite the nature culture divide and made a nature culture hybrid emerge that speaks loudly about the ruins betwixt status.

Paper Abstract:

By understanding the ruin of Bomarsund fortress, on the Åland Islands in Finland, as a “lost place” (Bauer & Dolgan 2020) I will show the complexity of an heritagization process, and how it is comprised of many different human and non-human actors, of which the landscape itself is one.

Unfinished, the Russian Bomarsund fortress was destroyed in august 1854 by British and French troops during the Baltic campaign of the Crimean war. The peace treaty of 1856 stated that Åland would be de-militarised, and it still is today. This meant the fortress was left as a ruin since it could not be rebuilt, and the landscape lost its military significance. By examining the landscape during a long period of time (1854-2022) and applying the ANT inspired "lost place", I can show how the ruin and surrounding landscape was an open place, available for different actors to claim and use for their own purposes. This also means that different natural features of the landscape have been valued differently during different times. By understanding the ruin of the fortress and the landscape around it as a hybrid between nature and culture I can make visible how certain topographical and geographical elements of the landscape has had a great influence on the ruins' status as cultural heritage, and how the status very much has been a thing of negotiation

Paper Short Abstract:

Fragments in the post-mining Ralsko landscape connect past, present, and future, embodying the fragility and transience of matter. By materializing absences, they reveal the emergence of landscapes as dynamic and relational, offering a lens for unwriting hegemonic narratives and rethinking landscapes anew.

Paper Abstract:

Drawing on the post-mining landscape of the Ralsko region, this paper explores the role of fragments as constitutive elements of landscape, both materially and experientially. Fragments, in their very incompleteness, connect the present moment with the past while carrying both into the future. Unlike traces, which are marks left on the material fabric of the world, fragments are integral parts of that fabric. They are inherently material but simultaneously embody the fragility and transience of matter.

The presence of fragments within the landscape allows for the materialization of absences. These fragments not only evidence processes of disappearance but also enable (re)appearance, demonstrating that landscapes are fundamentally emergent phenomena. The uranium mining legacy of Ralsko offers a compelling lens to examine this dynamic. Uranium, as an unstable and transformative element, embodies the transient and vibrant nature of matter, which profoundly shaped the region’s landscape during the 20th century and continues to do so today.

Focusing on fragments as constitutive of landscape provides an opportunity to engage in unwriting established assumptions about landscapes as stable or complete entities. By emphasizing instability and transience, fragments challenge dominant narratives and open pathways to rewrite landscapes as emergent, relational, and shaped by absences as much as presences. This approach aligns with unwriting’s call to undo hegemonic paradigms, offering a means to reconsider and recreate landscapes as dynamic, multidimensional, and entangled with histories of material transformation and absence

Paper Short Abstract:

This paper examines how memory sediments are inscribed in the landscape of Ralsko, Czech Republic. Through three case studies—a ruined castle and two abandoned villages—it explores the intertwined naturecultures of vegetal, and artificial material remains, reframing landscape heritage as dynamic and relational.

Paper Abstract:

This paper examines the layered memory sediments of Ralsko region, Czech Republic, an abandoned and dramatically transformed landscape shaped by military history, uranium mining, drastic exchange of its human inhabitants and the disappearance of villages. Drawing on three case studies—the ruins of Děvín Castle and the abandoned villages of Dolní Novina and Černá Novina—it investigates how landscape memory is inscribed in diverse materialities, both natural and artificial. These examples reveal the intertwined naturecultures of vegetation and artificial material traces, reframing the notion of “heritage” to include the dynamic interplay of human and non-human agency.

Děvín Castle stands as a ruin where stone and vegetation coalesce, creating a hybrid memory site of resilience and decay. Similarly, Dolní Novina and Černá Novina, with their ruins of previous uses as well as remaining fruit trees, veteran trees, and other vegetal legacies embody landscapes of care, neglect, and transformation. These sites highlight how human actions, ecological processes, and material afterlives converge to sustain memory within the landscape.

By adopting a natureculture perspective, this research challenges traditional binaries of natural versus cultural heritage. It demonstrates how the memory sediments of Ralsko’s landscape emerge from the entanglement of living and non-living elements, fostering relational and inclusive heritage practices. This paper contributes to a broader discussion on unwriting conventional narratives of abandonment and instead reimagining landscapes as more-than-human assemblages shaped by intergenerational memory and care.