Participatory perception mapping, informal public green space and ecological health in Southmead, Bristol

Abstract

This project employs a novel, critical PPGIS methodology to map local participant’s perceptions of the spatiality and quality of informal green spaces in Southmead, one of Bristol’s most relatively deprived wards. It does so in the face of the ecological crisis, which has impacts on human health and well-being that are unevenly embodied across lines of socioeconomic inequality in urban populations. It turns the technocentric and power-laden logic of GIS towards legitimising community value judgements about informal green spaces and their associated ecologies by facilitating the production of qualitative, localised spatial knowledge. This knowledge demonstrates a fundamental understanding of how the public understand their own well-being as bound up with ecological health, motivating action and custodianship. The project aims to address procedural and participatory injustice by bringing a more equal knowledge politics to planning in Bristol’s green spaces. It draws on a critical cartographic and political ecology theoretical framework to simultaneously address the continued abstraction of urban human communities from urban non-human nature by piloting an alternative to the expert-led GIS-based data collection methods used to analyse ecological value in urban landscapes.

Date of Award	24 Jan 2023
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Bristol
Supervisor	Ed Atkins (Supervisor) & Joanna House (Supervisor)