News from the Social and Public Policy Research Group (SPPRG)

Risks Beyond Human Eyes

Miguel Prado Casanova, Philosophy Programme Lead and Senior Lecturer in Philosophy (UWE Bristol), recently led a community research project that received significant media attention for its innovative approach to understanding environmental risks, with coverage in The Guardian, The Times, and internationally in The Times of India.

The six-month project explored how systemic risks facing the River Tone in Somerset can be understood from the perspectives of its nonhuman inhabitants. Working with local participants, the project focused on five species, red deer, otters, earthworms, kestrels and Atlantic salmon, asking participants to learn about their sensory worlds and then use field-based observation to identify risks that conventional human-centred approaches can overlook.

The resulting testimonies were used to map risks across the river catchment and explore how more-than-human perspectives might inform environmental decision-making and community responses.

The project was co-led by UWE Bristol and the Accelerator for Systemic Risk Assessment (ASRA), working with Friends of Longrun Meadow and Somerset Wildlife Trust, and funded by the Ecological Citizen(s) Network+. It builds on the More Than Human Lens Toolkit, developed by Patricia Fraga and Miguel, and has also led to the development of an Animal Collaboration Guide designed to make the approach adaptable to other species, landscapes and communities.

To learn more about this innovative project, read the UWE Bristol news release, ASRA webpage or listen to the podcast.

Miguel is a member of the Philosophical Approaches to Cultures and Environments research theme within SPPRG.

Contact

For more details about this project, please contact Miguel Prado Casanova (miguel.pradocasanova@uwe.ac.uk).