Collaboratory Researcher Profiles
Project Title: Developing a community-led model of sustainable and resilient urban nature
What were you doing before starting this PhD?
For the best part of the last seven years I worked for LeftLion Magazine, and left a bit of where I still volunteer as Environment Editor. During that time myself and longtime Hustle Collective collaborators began Green Hustle – a festival and year-round eco action CIC – which I still run along with five other Co-Directors and a big crew who deliver the green and creative things. I also started volunteering on Nottingham Climate Assembly about six years ago and got into participatory democracy organising and facilitating, and that led in January 2024 to convening what became Resolve Notts, initially in opposition to Nottingham City Council cuts but now a healthy volunteer-driven grassroots movement towards giving everyone in Notts a damn good listening to, building local connections, and growing community power. Collaborative working toward community-led green action and participation through an intersectional lens has been my passion focus for a while; a lot of this (as I conceive it) platform-building work has been necessarily voluntary, so I’m excited to be empowered to focus on it full time as a funded researcher.
What motivated you to apply for this specific PhD project?
Nature has been a big part of keeping my mental health in check and like many others, that relationship deepened during the pandemic when I discovered community gardening. Being in greenspace, tinkering around with various substrates, composting the old to grow the new, makes me happy – even better when it’s with other people. Looking after greenspaces helps look after us, and I think the more we understand ourselves and the world as a natural system which needs to be in balance with nature, the better. In delivering local volunteer-powered treeplanting and other green projects in communities across the city like Aspley, Bulwell, Bestwood, Wollaton, I’ve seen how transformative they can be for both people and nature.
What difference do you hope to make in Nottingham through this research?
We already see the positive impact of big nature-led developments like Green Heart, but I believe these benefits are possible at every scale of the community, from our windowsills to our streets. When we begin to rewild everything – ourselves, our democracy, our economy, and reflect nature at it’s balanced, abundant best – we demonstrably thrive. The most successful and long-running societies are those which are nature-connected, egalitarian, with defense mechanisms again domination and extraction. I’m reading a long-range history book called Goliath’s Curse by Luke Kemp at the moment, which evidence that fairer societies where interconnections are strong are nimbler and more resilient in the face of environmental changes. Rising inequalities make us more vulnerable to the climatic changes we’ve already locked in, and nature access and social connections are areas where we inequalities manifest. I hope this research can help make Nottingham a more equal, more inclusive place where power is more widely shared. Bringing more local people into co-creating and caring for and with nature, growing their own food, deepening relationships with spaces, places, and each other, begins to address that ambition whilst hopefully strengthening the resilience of our natural ecosystems. I’d love for Nottingham to be a case study and workshop for wider nature-led change that is rooted in community, celebrating a diversity of approaches and perspectives.
What do you hope to be doing in 5 years’ time?
I hope to be applying the skills I’ve developed through the PhD for the benefit of my community, whether that’s continuing to build collaborative platforms and projects, writing and storytelling, or continuing on in education. Continuing to be led by love, joy, and creativity, I’m in a place where I’m having as much positive impact as possible, whilst staying happy and healthy.