Urban more-than-humans, Part 1

In this last episode before our summer break, Susa and Kim explore various more-than-human voices in Coimbra (Portugal), Berlin (Germany), and Matosinhos (Portugal). By doing so, we touch on various types of symbiosis between humans and more-than-humans in cities, and when they are more or less toxic. We also reflect on whether more-than-humans are always coming from “nature”, or whether they might also include machines, for example.

As always, we welcome your input on how such episodes might be done in future, and hope you have enjoyed our attempt to give voice to and explore possible meanings of more-than-human voices around us.

We will be back with our next episode in September! Until then, we leave some ideas for how you might engage with more-than-humanness over your summer! :)

Take-aways for planners (and others!):

* Revisiting relations between humans and more-than-humans so that nature isn’t perhaps so aligned with trash or “leftovers”

* Emphasizing a sense of mutual care with birds (and other more-than-humans)

* Thinking about how much priority we are giving to which more-than-human and human side, i.e. “nature”, human, machine

* Recognizing the huge diversity of more-than-humanness even within urban environments, perhaps challenging the urban-rural binary

* Go listen for more-than-humanness, also in urban environments, seeking to hear and experience beyond our usual human senses, and allow this to challenge the directionalities we chose to prioritize in daily life

References from the episode:

Bridle, J. (2023). Ways of being: Animals, plants, machines: the search for a planetary intelligence. Penguin Books.

Hagens, Nate (2024) Daniel Schmachtenberger: "Moving from Naive to Authentic Progress: A Vision for Betterment”. The Great Simplification Podcast. 5.6.2024. https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/126-daniel-schmachtenberger-7

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planetaryplanning.substack.com