Becoming ecological citizens: connecting people through performance art, food matter and practices

Abstract

Engaging the interest of Western citizens in the complex food connections that shape theirs’ and others’ personal wellbeing around issues such as food security and access is challenging. This article is critical of the food marketplace as the site for informing consumer behaviour and argues instead for arts-based participatory activities to support the performance of ecological citizens in non-commercial spaces. Following the ongoing methodological and conceptual fascination with performance, matter and practice in cultural food studies, we outline what the ecological citizen, formed through food’s agentive potential, does and could do. This is an ecological citizen, defined not in its traditional relation to the state but rather to the world of humans and non-humans whose lives are materially interconnected through nourishment. The article draws on the theories of Berlant, Latour, Bennett and Massumi. Our methodology is a collaborative arts-led research project that explored and juxtaposed diverse food practices with artist Paul Hurley, researchers, community partners, volunteers and participants in Bristol, UK. It centred on a 10-day exhibition where visitors were exposed to a series of interactive explorations with and about food. Our experience leads us to outline two steps for enacting ecological citizenship. The first step is to facilitate sensory experiences that enable the agential qualities of foodstuffs to shape knowledge making. The second is to create a space where people can perform, or relate differently, in unusual manners to food. Through participating in the project and visiting the exhibition, people were invited to respond not only as ‘ethical consumers’ but also as ‘ecological citizens’. This participatory approach to research can contribute to understandings of human-world entanglements.

Blue space as caring space – water and the cultivation of care in social and environmental practice

“…nature walks or gardening), social (i.e. human) relations can be key to developing sensitivity to nonhuman issues (Pitt, 2018;Roe & Buser, 2016). In this sense, we can see how Trevor, Hugh and Loraine have also facilitated and nurtured enabling place encounters (Duff, 2012) and opportunities for intimate human-human interactions in order to stimulate and support quality relations with nonhumans.…”

“…what they are, how they function) and the role of water assets and issues in community relations. Broadly, the concept of 'hydrocitizenship' references the wider notion of ecological citizenship, which sees the need for transformations in how society works at individual and collective levels, as essential if humans are going to generate more ecologically sustainable forms of living (Dobson, 2003;Roe & Buser, 2016). Our focus on water reflected an effort to narrow the concept towards one (albeit central) aspect of ecological thinkingrelations of water.…”

“…For example, in her research on community gardeners, Hannah Pitt counters conventional wisdom that direct contact with nature leads to more ethical regard and care for nonhumans. Other research has argued that embodied, practiceoriented encounters alone are unlikely to produce a particular pro-environmental subject, but rather, these experiences must be supported by ways of relating differently (Roe & Buser, 2016; see also Wyles et al, 2017; on the role of beach cleans as a means to raise marine awareness and pro-environmental behaviour).…”

Mapping microbial stories: Creative microbial aesthetic and cross‐disciplinary intervention in understanding nurses’ infection prevention practices

“…Was the political‐aesthetic of these images cultivating a new sensibility to the microbial; a microbial citizenship? Following Roe and Buser () who argue participatory performance art can engage people with the politics of ecologies, through staging embodied intra‐actions with non‐humans, here the political aesthetic provokes wonder at what microbial citizenship could be. As health policies tackle the challenge of AMR, political aesthetics work to give new visions on the microbial, generated through embodied activities.…”

Performing Social Media: Artistic Approaches to Analyzing Big Data

“…Such collaborations have been extensive and proven to be of great value in the development of both artistic and geographical knowledge (Schaaf, Worrall-Hood, and Jones 2017). Various forms of art are utilised in such collaborations, including performance art (Roe and Buser 2016), exhibitions (Young and Kelly 2017), and poetry (Jones and Jam 2016;Philo 2017). This article adds to these art-geography collaborations by using big data in performance art.…”