As Environment and Society scholars, we critically engage the urgent issues of these times, which we understand as contextualised in long histories of human social and ecological interactions. Our research has the main intention of recognising and creating safe and thriving spaces – environmentally, culturally, and socially – for all beings. In acknowledging there are multiple ways of knowing and
experiencing the world, we move away from imposed understandings of “the environment” and engage in conversations about possible and ideal presents and futures. Our research invokes creative approaches to understanding what it means to be human in a more-than-human world, what it means to be just in a human-disrupted world, and what ways of being constitute and foster caring and flourishing interrelated lives. In our research and teaching we also acknowledge the Gadigal and Bedigal people of the Eora nation, the Traditional Custodians of this Land within which we work, as well as the First Nations custodians of all lands and waters. It is our goal to teach and do research seeking out restorative relations between peoples and Country as a way of paying our respect to Elders – past, present, and emerging – and to extend that respect to all beings.
