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hades-newsletter - HADES newsletter - subscribe

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Jenny Atchison | About | University of Wollongong

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View the University of Wollongong profile of Jenny Atchison. Including their research outputs, funding, service & leadership and teaching & supervision.

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Subverting data stories from the underground.

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Senior Lecturer

Sociology, Anthropology and Human Services

Sociology, Anthropology and Human Services

Elsie Locke, Level 3, Room 318

Dr. Phillips's work examines how everyday relations between people and nature take shape, become understood, and are contested in everyday life, as well as how they interact with governance efforts at various scales. Her work develops new understandings and approaches to support sustainable and just responses to socio-ecological challenges. Recent work orients around: urban natures, agriculture and food, discard and waste. Interdisciplinary in nature, her research emerges from productive confluences and tensions among social and environmental geography, science and technology studies, and feminist theory. Her fieldwork has included sites in Canada, South Africa, Indonesia, Australia, and now New Zealand. She is currently PI on an ARC Discovery project to better understand people's relations with urban trees and green spaces (see www.plantcities.com).

Catherine has taught subjects in sociology, geography, environmental science and studies, development studies, and political studies. In 2025 at UC, she coordinates and teaches ' Environment and Society' (SOCI220) and ' Everyday Life and Society' (SOCI263). She also coordinates and team-teaches ' Exploring Society' (SOCI111) and ' Sustainability Transitions, Transformations and Agents of Change' (SENS301). Next year, she will teach a new course in ' Food Systems, Sustainability & Social Change' (SOCI306/ANTH326/SOCI406).

Catherine is also an Honorary at the University of Melbourne (School of Geography, Earth & Atmospheric Sciences).

TE WHARE WĀNANGA O WAITAHA - UNIVERSITY OF CANTERBURY APPOINTMENTS

University of Canterbury, Sociology, Anthropology and Human Services, Faculty of Arts 22 Jan 2024 - present

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University of Canterbury, Sociology, Christchurch, New Zealand

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS

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Catherine Phillips | About | Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha - University of Canterbury

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View the Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha - University of Canterbury profile of Catherine Phillips. Including their research outputs and service & leadership.

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The City of Melbourne maintains more than 70,000 trees. This website enables you to explore this dataset and some of the challenges facing Melbourne’s Urban Forest.

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Age diversity

Like all living things, trees decline in health as they age. Trees that are in poor health are not as effective at providing environmental benefits, such as cooling the city, providing habitat or cleaning the air. If a tree's health is not expected to improve, it is removed from the landscape to enable a new tree to be planted.

Many of Melbourne's trees, including those in our iconic boulevards and parks, are well over 100 years old. While they have performed remarkably well to date in faring against droughts, changing climate and urbanisation, their health is declining as they age. Many of Melbourne's trees were planted at the same time, giving us beautiful landscapes of large trees. Unfortunately, this also means that many trees will decline in health and require removal at the same time. In addition to loss of tree canopy cover and amenity, this can reduce the amount of habitat available for wildlife.

A resilient urban forest features age diversity, with species of varying life spans and growth rates.

A juvenile tree is classified as any young tree planted within the last few years

Semi-mature trees are no longer young but are yet to reach their full potential

A mature tree has reached it's full potential in the landscape.

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Age diversity Like all living things, trees decline in health as they age. Trees that are in poor health are not as effective at providing environmental benefits, such as cooling the city, providing habitat or cleaning the air. If a tree's health is not expected to improve, it is removed from the landscape to enable a new tree to be planted.

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 We are researching people’s feelings, concerns, and valuations of urban trees.

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CATHERINE PHILLIPS

RESEARCHER

Catherine is a social studies scholar at the University of Canterbury. Her research combines an ethnographic approach with social theory to understand the relations among humans and nonhumans, and how environments become governed. She works and lives on the unceded lands of Māori people, and grew up on those of the Anishinaabe.

JENNIFER ATCHISON

RESEARCHER

Jen is an Associate Professor at the School of Geography and Sustainable Communities at the University of Wollongong. She has a passion for plants and her research seeks to understand the place of plants in past, present and future lives. She has had the privilege of learning about people, plants and environmental change in Gadjerong Country.

ELIZABETH STRAUGHAN

POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCHER

Libby is a cultural geographer with posts at the University of Melbourne and the University of Wollongong. Her research focuses on the sensory and emotional aspects of embodied practices.

OTHER CONTRIBUTORS:

Lesley Head (University of Melbourne), Anastasia (Stas) Gramatakos (University of Melbourne), Willow Ross (University of Melbourne), Chris Brennan-Horley (University of Wollongong, phase 1), Candice Boyd (University of Melbourne, phase 1), Kim Doyle (University of Melbourne), Anna Lewis (University of Wollongong, phase 1), Sophie Takách (Monash University, phase 1)

Partner: City of Melbourne (phase one)

One outcome of the project is a tree tour. There are images and directions to particular trees, as well as excerpts about that tree from a soundscape. The soundscape combines readings of emails to trees, environmental sounds from tree places, and imagined tree responses.

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Have you ever formed a strong attachment to a specific tree or green place? What made that connection meaningful for you?

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Have you ever formed a strong attachment to a specific tree or green place? What made that connection meaningful for you?

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How do urban forests influence your sense of belonging, comfort, or well-being within a city?

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How do urban forests influence your sense of belonging, comfort, or well-being within a city?

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If a tree in your neighbourhood could send you an email, what do you think it would say?

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If a tree in your neighbourhood could send you an email, what do you think it would say?

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If the council planted a new tree on the verge outside your house, what type of species would you like to be planted?

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If the council planted a new tree on the verge outside your house, what type of species would you like to be planted?

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Research Fellow in Human Geography at the University of Melbourne. Cultural geographer interested in the politics and ethics of embodied experience researching geographies of home and work, human-environment relations and mobilities.

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In Australia policies are prioritising increases in urban forest coverage and diversity as a Climate Change Adaptation response. However, the relationship between people’s feelings about urban trees and public policy is under-examined. Responding to this gap in research we consider the emotional geographies of urban forests in the Australian city of Melbourne.  We draw on a unique dataset from The City of Melbourne’s email-a-tree initiative, to identify how concern and connection for urban trees is expressed. We examined these emails sent to trees using a mixed-methods approach that included qualitative coding, VADER sentiment analysis, and statistical and spatial analyses. Our analysis subverts anthropocentric assumptions of trees by suggesting new ways of understanding people’s commitments to nature, and possibilities for securing better futures for urban forests.

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I wonder how email or other technologeis could make visible the interconnections between trees and other nature (flora, wildlife, soil and geography)... thinking with a relationality hat, looking at connections rather than trees as individual elements   

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I wonder how email or other technologeis could make visible the interconnections between trees and other nature (flora, wildlife, soil and geography)... thinking with a relationality hat, looking at connections rather than trees as individual elements   

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This was an issue in Footscray, where there was a tree known for its trees, and several were cut down which there were protests about, but they were dead/dying trees

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I’m so glad I made time for this webinar. This was one of the most fabulous datasets I’ve seen in a research project in a long time. I’m on my phone and the padlet isn’t working for me, so I just wanted to express my appreciation! Thanks for sharing.