River Tone Risks Beyond Human Eyes: Building Animal Risk Worlds
What risks are you experiencing?
After weeks of collaboration, this is the moment we hear from our nonhuman animals as to the risks they face.
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What to expect. This session is one of the most important. Keeping the informal, playful and experimental feel going, we'll gather as your nonhuman animals to give a situated testimony of the risks your experience. How does your day‑to‑day experience of risk differ from how humans might understand them? Working in small groups, you’ll be invited to speak from the viewpoint of the animals you know, describing recent moments where threats, pressures, or changes have shown up along the river. Your situated testimony will help us see where risks really gather, where our current assumptions are off, and where to focus on for protection and risk reduction efforts.
What to bring: Bring your Animal Collaboration Guide if you've been filling it out as a field diary. Otherwise, bring whatever materials you've been using for notes. Feel free to bring an object, totem, or toy representing your animal, we'll place these on the map.
What happens if I can't make it? That's ok, we still want you to stay with the project. The best way to feed in is through booking a 30 min online slot with the team via ptovey@asranetwork - simply email with the title "give my situated testimony" and some options of when might work for you. Note however, this needs to be within 5-7 days of the session.
Looking forward. Once this session is complete, the research team will conduct a Systemic Risk Assessment (SRA) - looking for overlaps, intersecting points, risk cascades etc. We'll be presenting this assessment back to you to read before coming together for our last working session in April - to formulate our animal-led Systemic Risk Response (SRR).
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For the full project info, please see our Project FAQs document.
This project is open to anyone from the River Tone catchment - from Elworthy to Burrowbridge, Luxhay to West Bagborough. Come and join this bold attempt to reconnect River Tone with their people and animals, and make new friends along the way.
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Dates for your diary:
To confirm:
Week of 27 April Third half day gathering in-person, “animal-led systemic responses”, in Taunton with food.
Week of 25 May Final half day gathering in-person, “collective action and reflections", in Taunton with food.
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This project is kindly funded by the EPSRC's Ecological Citizen(s) Network and led by the University West of England and ASRA, in partnership with Friends of Longrun Medaow and Somerset Wildlife Trust