Stewardship Salons: Sharing artistic ways of knowing and biocultural approaches to transform urban natural resources management

Abstract

Transformation of urban natural resources management requires engagement with a diversity of worldviews and practices related to land and place. Yet, currently a narrow set of discourses and practices informed by positivist science and legacies of colonial land relations tend to dominate the field. Further, the natural resources sector lacks diversity in staff and volunteers. How can practitioners and researchers meaningfully be informed by different ways of knowing and caring for urban ecosystems? Stewardship Salons are envisioned as non-hierarchical gatherings where everyone has the ability to be a teacher and a learner. This approach was first inspired by an exchange between NYC-based practitioners and Native Hawaiian educators and practitioners in 2017. Since then, partners from USDA Forest Service and NYC Parks have organized outdoor, experiential salons that engage land managers, artists, researchers, and practitioners in learning from place and each other. Whether taking the form of a walk, a talk, or an embodied practice, salons are co-created experiences rooted in co-learning. This article draws upon participant observation and program evaluation data to share our salon approach. Salons have been led by Tribal members, performance and visual artists, community activists and stewards, and different cultural and religious groups. We discuss the value of creating spaces for reflection, professional development that fully engages personal lived experience, and amplifying frequently untold narratives about urban ecosystems. We share artistic and embodied ways of knowing and biocultural stewardship practices as pathways towards more inclusive approaches to the land rooted in reciprocity and care.