Experiencing the city street, ‘a-New’: a posthuman exploration into the relations of multiplicities that can contribute to restorative engagements unfolding with(in) Birmingham’s New Street

Gutteridge, Daniel (2023) Experiencing the city street, ‘a-New’: a posthuman exploration into the relations of multiplicities that can contribute to restorative engagements unfolding with(in) Birmingham’s New Street. Masters dissertation, University of Cumbria. Item availability may be restricted.

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Abstract

This study is a walk that zigs and zags with the equivocal engagements of relations taking place on Birmingham’s New Street. A walk that thinks with the posthuman to explore how these relations may or may not lead to restorative experiences within an environment one would commonly view as ‘urban’. The study’s co-researchers walk the street whilst investigating if restoration can be found, through undertaking the (non)method of schizocartography. The study is an attempt to level the nature-urban dichotomy by highlighting the under-researched restorative potential of urban environments, applying the components of Kaplan and Kaplan’s Attention Restoration Theory to base the study and define restoration. These components are then de and re-stabilised through a rhizoanalytic approach to the research. This approach enables the theory practice of the study to palpate as it produces thinking by giving voice to some of the non-human elements of the street. Meanwhile, allowing for an alternative way of structuring research away from formulaic categorisation. Assemblage theory is used to further the understanding of how the multiplicities of the streets’ heterogeneous elements react to create affects engaged with on the street. In interpreting New Street as a fluid non-static environment, in seeing the perspective of agential realism, and in decentring the human, the Kaplan’s components of ART are (re)framed and (re)conceptualised to propose how the agents, human and non-human, of the street can access becomings of restoration.

Item Type:	Thesis/Dissertation (Masters)
Departments:	Institute of Science and Environment > Outdoor Studies
Additional Information:	Dissertation presented in part fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Masters of Arts in Outdoor and Experiential Learning, University of Cumbria, word count: 15,792.
Depositing User:	Heather Prince
Date Deposited:	27 Feb 2023 15:31
Last Modified:	13 Jan 2024 14:31
URI:	https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/6923