Approach
A relational approach
Most approaches treat nature as a backdrop to be ignored or factored in as a challenging third factor to figure out in a triple bottom line people, profit, planet approach.
We work with land an more-than-human communities as a teachers, collaborators and co-creators.
That might mean:
learning from lichen about navigating complexity as a team or organisation
exploring mutual aid through fungal networks and the wood wide web
rethinking power, stewardship and governance with rivers as guides
Being nourished through challenging conversations by nature-connection
grounding conversations about justice in place and lived expertise
This creates conditions for conversations and decisions that are more honest, regenerative, relational and rooted in justice.
ANTI-FASCIST ENVIRONMENTALISM
REPAIRING RELATIONS
COLLECTIVE IMAGINATION
Building on the terms root, we interpret “Riverkin” as a lens to understand the living world as a web of entangled relations we are part of, rather than a resource to manage, dominate and extract from. the same harmful paradigms that show up between humans, as well as our relationships with nature. Movements in the UK and beyond rethinking how we live with rivers are gaining traction, highlighting their importance as live-giving entities we belong to, are accountable to and neither we nor our more-than-human communities can thrive without.
We use the framing of "Becoming Riverkin" to recognise:
Our wellbeing is tied to the health of lands and waters
The myth of separation and human-supremacy over nature is the same logic at the root of other forms of injustice such as white supremacy, colonialism, racism, ablism, mysoginy, transphobia, anti-muslim hate and other interlocking oppressions.
We have a long way to go to move away from extractive, colonial logics that dictate our relations with the more-than-human, ourselves and each other in Anglo/Eurocentric Colonial contexts. We can only truly become Riverkin by addressing the root and dismantling all forms of oppression.
"The true focus of revolutionary change is never merely the oppressive situations which we seek to escape, but that piece of the oppressor which is planted deep within each of us" - Audre Lorde
We seek to bring this framing into our work with initiatives focused on stewardship, commons-based governance and community participation that are anti-oppressive and oriented towards right relationship between humans and more-than-human.
What is Riverkin?
Practices
This work draws on:
design justice, service design, co-design and participatory design
Racial justice, disability justice and climate justice principles
anti-oppressive and decolonial scholarship and practice
systems and futures thinking
trauma-informed research and design
Climate justice, eco-feminism and queer ecology
nature-based and place-based practices
Key Principles
This work is:
participatory and co-creative — people learn through doing and having agency within processes
relational — grounded in connection with ourselves, our human and more-than-human communities
place-based — shaped and informed by local context, needs and ecology
Power-conscious and anti-oppressive - attentive to power, history, inequity and injustice at the interpersonal, institutional and systemic levels.
Invitational - Working with people, organisations and communities we have been invited and have informed consent to collaborate with rather than imposing on communities
Respects lived expertise - Lived and learned expertise are valued equally within collaboration and compensation