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My Responsible Stewardship of a Place: The Mother Tree Taught Me How

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I incorporated my own a/r/tographical living inquiry (Springgay, Irwin, & Kind, 2005) into my daily walk from September 1 2018 to August 31 2019. I used the A/r/tography research method, because “practice-based research is situated in the in-between, where theory-as-practice-as-process-as-complication intentionally unsettles perception and knowing through living inquiry” (Irwin, & Springgay, 2008, p. xxi).

In this chapter, I will share my yearlong learning in relation to four topics. Firstly, how we can live and share space with nature and wild animals under the First people's perspective (ELF, 2019). Secondly, how we can meet and live with children in a common world (Taylor, 2013) perspective. Thirdly, how my neighbors have been reimagining, reorienting, returning and respecting the place with their opened minds (Harraway, 2016; McCoy. Tuck & McKenzie 2016). Fourthly, I reflect on my responsible stewardship of the place. In this section, I reflect on how my ways of making and engaging with my artistic, natural creation in the space retained or affected the quality and abundance of our land, air, water and biodiversity.

Keywords: A/r/tography ; Entangling with the More-than-Human ; Events ; Living Inquiry ; Mother Tree ; Outdoor Atelier ; Responsible Relationality ; Stewardship ; Unfolding ; Walking

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My Responsible Stewardship of a Place: The Mother Tree Taught Me How
Intellect , 199 (2024); https://doi.org/10.1386/9781789389197_11
/content/books/9781789389197.c09
/content/books/9781789389197.c09
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References

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  3. Dahlberg, G. , & Moss, P. (2005). Ethics and politics in early childhood education. Routledge Falmer.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Dewey, J. (1934). Art as experience. Perigee.
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Fisher, B. , & Tronto, J. (1990). Towards a feminist theory of care. In E. Abel & M. Nelson (Eds.), Circles of care (pp. 35–62). SUNY Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Government of British Columbia. (2019). British Columbia early learning framework. Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Children and Family Development, & British Columbia Early Learning Advisory Group.
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  7. Haraway, D. (2016). Staying with the trouble: Making kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  8. Irwin, R. (2008). A/r/tography as practice-based research. In S. Springgay , R. L. Irwin , C. Leggo , & P. Gouzouasis (Eds.), Being a/r/tography (pp. 71–80). Sense.
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  11. Kimmerer, R. W. (2013). Braiding sweetgrass: Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the teachings of plants. Milkweed Editions.213
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  12. Lasczik Cutcher, A. , & Irwin, R. L. (2018). A/r/tographic peripatetic inquiry and the flâneur. In A. Lasczik Cutcher & R. L. Irwin (Eds.), The flâneur and education research: A metaphor for knowing, being ethical, and new data production (pp. 131–153). Springer.
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  14. Lee, N. , Morimoto, K. , Mosavarzadeh, M. , & Irwin, R. L. (2019). Walking propositions: Coming to know a/r/tographically. The International Journal of Art & Design Education, 38 (3), 681–690. https://doi.org/10.1111/jade.12237
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  15. McCoy, K. , Tuck, E. , & McKenzie, M. (2017). Land education: Rethinking pedagogies of place from Indigenous, post-colonial, and decolonizing perspectives. Routledge.
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  16. McKenzie, M. , & Bieler, A. (2016). Critical education and sociomaterial practice. Peter Lang.
     [Google Scholar]
  17. Merleau-Ponty, M. (2002). Phenomenology of perception. Routledge.
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  18. Nancy, J. L. (2000). Being singular plural (R. D. Richardson & A. D. O'Byrne, Trans.). Stanford University Press.
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  19. O'Sullivan, S. (2006). Art encounters Deleuze and Guattari: Through beyond representation. Palgrave.
     [Google Scholar]
  20. Pacini-Ketchabaw, V. , Kind, S. , & Kocher, L. L. M. (2017). Encounters with materials in early childhood education. Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  21. Simard, S. W. (2017). The mother tree. In A.-S. Springer & E. Turpin (Eds.), The word for world is still forest (pp. 67–71). K. Verlag and the Haus der Kulturen der Welt .
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  22. Simard, S. W. (2021). Finding the mother tree: Discovering the wisdom of the forest. Allen Lane.
     [Google Scholar]
  23. Solnit, R. (2000). Wanderlust: A history of walking. Penguin Books.
     [Google Scholar]
  24. Somerville, M. (2007). Space and place in education: (Still) speaking from the margins. Paper presented at Australian Association for Research in Education, Freemantle, Western Australia, November 26–29. http//www.aare.edu.au/07pap/som07563.pdf
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     [Google Scholar]
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     [Google Scholar]
  28. Tronto, J. C. (1998). An ethic of care. Journal of the American Society on Aging, 22 (3), 15–20.
     [Google Scholar]
  29. Tsing, A. L. (2015). The mushroom at the end of the world: On the possibility of life in capitalist ruins. Princeton University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  30. van Manen, M. (2014). Phenomenology of practice: Meaning-giving methods in phenomenological research and writing. Left Coast Press.
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  31. Wohlleben, P. (2016). The hidden life of trees: What they feel, how they communicate: Discoveries from a secret world. David Suzuki Institute.214
     [Google Scholar]

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