Nature-based Integration: Connecting Communities with/ in Nature
About us
Project overview
Our project is funded by The Nuffield Foundation and the British Academy.
This project will explore the role the natural environment can play in facilitating migrant integration in the UK and aims to inform national frameworks for integration and local integration initiatives.
With an estimated 14% of residents born overseas, migrants and migrant-background communities play a crucial role in UK society. However, anti-immigrant sentiment and social divisions have grown over the last few years, highlighting the need for effective integration strategies. Growing bodies of research and practice demonstrate the role the natural environment can play in integrating migrant and non-migrant communities. However, UK policy remains focused on social and structural dimensions of integration, with little focus given to the physical environment.
The research team will investigate different types of integration practices and informal interactions in a variety of natural environments, potential outcomes, how outcomes vary according to the type of natural environment and local population characteristics, the role of key stakeholders, and the challenges and barriers to nature-based integration. They will also consider conflicting and divergent uses of green space and the limitations of the natural environment as a resource for integration. The research will be broken down into two stages:
Full details about our project can be found HERE
Nature Based Integration practice:
- Working with local advisors in the Scotich Highlands and Islands, Blackburn with Darwen and the Greater London to identify suitable case study sites; and meeting with key local stake holders to identify needs, interests, barriers, challenges, potential participants and recruitments approaches.
- Additionally, working collaboratively with a diverse range of residents to develop a map of the case study sites, identifying routes, activities and safe/ unsafe spaces.
- Hosting workshops, co-designed with stakeholders, to support diverse community members to creatively represent their everyday experience of the natural environment.
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