Being Flamingos and Trees: Marginalized Groups Respond to Landscapes Using Inclusive Multimodal Literacies and Arts

Abstract

In research about landscapes and the environment, scientific ontologies and epistemologies prevail, thus largely excluding contributions from marginalized groups, or creative expressions of what spaces mean to people. This article draws on qualitative place-based arts workshops, which used multimodal and multisensory methods with deaf children and disabled adults. The resulting co-created texts and artworks represent meaningful responses to specific local landscapes and their natural inhabitants. Considering literacies, power, and who can or cannot be an author, this article argues that such processes of creative co-production could be viewed as means of overcoming marginalization and enabling disabled people to engage with local landscapes. Inclusive literacy practices are presented as ways in to “authoring” marginalized groups’ responses to natural environments, with potentially transformative outcomes for the participants, decision-making processes, and the land itself.