Interviews with Nature, Engaging with Methodological Innovation
By Kira L. Johnson, MSc
Indigenous people around the world have been learning from the land since time immemorial; acknowledging that interconnected plants, animals, insects, trees, microbiota, and their relationships offer abundant teachings about the world we live in[i][ii]. These relationships may be inexorably linked with survival, well-being, and cosmology. In contrast, academic research, where grounded in colonial and capitalist structures of knowing, typically gathers quantitative data from nature – collecting, counting, and measuring - without concern for qualitative, experiential, and embodied lessons that can be learned from observing other species and the ecosystems we all live in, nor asking how we might live in better relationship with nature. I am a settler, both here on the unceded territory of the Coast Salish People (British Columbia, Canada), and in the place of my birth on the unceded land of the Northern Pomo (California, USA).
While I do not possess the Indigenous traditional ecological knowledge mentioned at the outset of this paper, I do believe nature is the first place to look for answers to the complex problems we face on a changing planet. As part of my research in planetary health, I am engaging with nature as innovative, reciprocal methodology, to gather undisciplined, qualitative insights and guidance from forests, plants, rivers, lakes, and wildlife. These learnings inform my perspectives on planetary health, climate change, complexity, food systems, and housing. The following is also part of relearning, and grounding my doctoral research in the context of good, reciprocal relationships with the ecosystems we live in.
My journey in methodological innovation started as part of my directed studies on Planetary Health with Dr. Maya Gislason and the RESET Lab. I was tasked with exploring the ecological determinants of planetary health through introspection and experiential, nature-based learning. The final task of this project is to engage in my practice of nature immersion as methodological innovation. Because my background is in Anthropology, some of this methodology is grounded in the participant observation framework (as described by H.R. Bernard in Research Methods in Anthropology) where cultural immersion is central to research, but in my case, nature immersion is the starting point[iii]. Likewise, “unstructured interview” is terminology taken directly from participant observation. The techniques that I chose for these interviews: immersion in nature, guiding focus, intentional presence, awareness, and listening were selected based on my own experiential learning during immersion. What emerged from this was a series of unstructured and focus-based interviews (my own terminology) with nature, mostly conducted at West Hill Park and Sasamat Lake near Port Moody, BC.
My first interviews with nature were wholly unstructured. I went with open eyes and ears, presence, and the intention of listening and learning. Because I walk frequently in the afore mentioned places, my first observation was constant change. Nothing is stagnant, all species and ecosystems on earth are in a constant cycle of birth, growth, fertility, old age, disease, and death – and throughout these cycles, each life interacts with and influences the lives of others.
All research being conducted today occurs in the landscape of climate change, whether acknowledged or not. Constant change is particularly relevant when considering climate change, whereby natural systems’ normal cycles are affected by extreme events of temperature, precipitation, and weather, influencing individuals and potentially damaging relationships between species[iv][v].
After my initial unstructured interview, focus-based interviews further informed my specific research. Focus-based interviews involve holding a singular question in mind for grounding observations, the technique generally mimics unstructured interviews, but instead of broad, open reception to knowledge, focus continually returns to a singular focus question. I created new terminology for this because I don’t believe that other interview terminology encompasses the mental focus, nor the slow speed at which nature might answers questions. For each focus-based interview, I went to nature with a singular focus question. Because complex interactions are at the heart of my research, my first focus-based interview focused on complexity. Specifically, I wanted to learn from nature about how to do research on diverse seemingly unconnected issues, and about what truly connects things. The following describes my practice of this method and findings:
I stood on a path, looking and listening, with my focus question in mind. From this point, I began to focus my vision on the singular point of a thorn. Resting my attention there, I understood the desire to focus on one small part of a greater system; the thorn is clear - it’s shape, texture, and connections. But as I broadened my vision, including the vine the thorn grew upon, the leaves, the roots and soil, the air, the trees and plants growing around the plant at the center of my attention, the animals existing in the ecosystem, the water running through it all… I can see how details might easily be lost when working on big picture problems. In this regard, continued shifts in scope and focus emerged essential in dealing with complexity. Additionally, finding focus points, allows for the mind to ground in specificity while expanding focus to explore points of connection, offering starting points for deeply understanding complex systems. Connections also became apparent, while links between distant points may not be immediately visible, nature reminds us that all is connected. That pressure in one place will result in responses in many others.
Another focus-based interview asked for lessons on the connection of food systems and housing. Food systems in forests run through every leaf, insect, plant, tree, and animal. All is food, and likewise, all are eating in some regard. There is no waste. Whether we acknowledge it or not, we are part of this system, both eating and being eaten. Trees as individuals and communities offer great teachings, especially about housing, being homes to abundant biodiversity long before they are cut to make homes for humans. Trees not only offer homes for other creatures out of their above ground bodies, but also stabilize the soil, and thus the homes of many other species, with their collective roots – again showing the immense connectivity and importance of relationships between species. Moreover, in nature, food systems and homes are inextricable from one-another. Food for one, might be the home of another, and the health of the collective home effects all, just like it does for us humans, even though we may see this through the lens of built environment. Nature tells us that homes, food systems, and health are deeply intertwined. Considering planetary health through this teaching, offers insights for solutions to human built environments and food systems.
This methodology continually reminds researchers that we are not separate from nature, but instead deeply interconnected with diverse and complex ecosystems. Research experts acknowledge that our understanding of the world, can be informed through many ways of seeing, and that knowledge is “not always reducible to language” and comes in varying forms[vi]. While nature may not speak in the verbal languages academics generally utilize to conduct interviews, nature can and does communicate, and as part of nature, we are all capable of understanding if we take the time to listen.
References
[i] Ratima, M., Martin, D., Castleden, H. and Delormier, T. (2019). Indigenous voices and knowledge systems – promoting planetary health, health equity, and sustainable development now and for future generations Sage Journals. Volume 26, Issue 3_suppl, https://doi.org/10.1177/17579759198384
[ii] Redvers, N., Poelina, A., Schultz, C., Kobei, D.M., Githaiga, C., Perdrisat, M., Prince, D., and Blondin, B. (2020). Indigenous Natural and First Law in Planetary Health. Challenges. 11, no. 2: 29. https://doi.org/10.3390/challe11020029
[iii] Bernard, H.R. 2006. Interviewing: Unstructured and Semi-structured Interviews. Research Methods in Anthropology. Alta Mira Press
[iv] IPCC (2023). AR6 Synthesis Report: Climate Change 2023. Interlocken, Switzerland, 13-19 March 2023. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-cycle/
[v] He, X., Liang, J., Zeng, G., Yuan, Y., Li, X. (2019). The Effects of Interaction between Climate Change and Land-Use/Cover Change on Biodiversity-Related Ecosystem Services. Global Challenges. https://doi.org/10.1002/gch2.201800095
[vi] Liamputtong, P. (2017). Innovative Research Methods in Health Social Sciences: An Introduction. In: Liamputtong, P. (eds) Handbook of Research Methods in Health Social Sciences. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2779-6_1-1