Doing more-than-human culture: Reports from the field, part I: With an editorial introduction by Carsten Herrmann-Pillath

Abstract

This article presents three Field Dialogues from the

, a practice-based inquiry hosted by The Repatterning Collective: The three conversations are brought together here for the first time in academic form, accompanied by a theoretical introduction that situates them within ecosemiotics, assemblage theory, and the philosophy of language. The first , with Joanna Crowson of Casa Gaia and Almenara, explores what it means to work with the land rather than on it — and the particular challenge of listening without projecting. Her work raises questions about what counts as valid knowledge when embodied, relational sensing meets institutional demands for data and measurable outcomes. The second , with design anthropologist Ariel Sim, introduces more-than-human design as both mindset and method. Drawing on a forthcoming toolkit of 22 design practices, the conversation foregrounds behavioural transformation as an essential companion to new tools: changing what we do requires shifting how we see ourselves in relation to the living world. The third , with environmental journalist Torsten Schäfer, traces the Talking Salmon research project across Germany, Scandinavia, and the Pacific Northwest. It examines what Indigenous languages carry about human-nonhuman kinship that scientific and journalistic English largely cannot, and what practices like writing from a fish's perspective open up for researchers and students alike. Together, the three dialogues illustrate how cultural transformation is a necessary condition for ecological transformation: without repatterning the background assumptions through which humans relate to the living world, the institutional changes pursued by transdisciplinary projects will remain constrained. They offer concrete evidence of what this repatterning looks like in practice, at the ground level, across design, land stewardship, and storytelling.