Rae Turpin

Primary page content

Rae Turpin's PhD research project

Littered bodies of the urban wilds: Dis/belonging and an embodied praxis of becoming-with

At a global stage defined by the relentless acceleration of urbanisation and the pervasive harms of the Capitalocene, this research embraces an urgent need to explore and refine practices of more-than-human community- and place-making.

The increasingly diminishing opportunities for embodied relationalities amongst species call for attuned, response-able, and transformative approaches to the ways we dwell and become-with others. This project adopts a new materialist and posthumanist framework to engage with bodies often categorised as undesirable, out of place, inconvenient, disruptive or troublesome. It asks what these so-called ‘littered bodies’ can offer by means of ethico-onto-epistem-ological practices (Barad, 2007) when approached as transformative phenomena in relational becoming(s).

Rooted in the posthumanist imperative to “stay with the trouble” (Haraway, 2016), this research-practice is situated within the urban wilds of Shoreburs, Southampton, UK. This rich and active site of entangled materialities and relational practices disrupts traditional urban ecology paradigms, which often operate within anthropocentric frameworks of order, cleanliness, and control.

By foregrounding litter and other undesirables as agential co-constituents place-, community- and world-making, this project challenges dominant narratives of discard that frame waste and related matter as static, inert and useless matter to be excluded. Instead, it conceptualises littered bodies as generative provocations that reconfigure what community and care can mean within multispecies entanglements.

Rooted in the theoretical and practice-based frameworks of feminist new materialism, posthumanism, and post-qualitative practice-research, I draw on scholars such as Karen Barad, Donna Haraway, and Rosi Braidotti to reconfigure human/non-human, subject/object, and waste/value binaries.

Furthermore, I lean into explorations of how ontologies of entanglement can function as a springboard for approaching the complex relational materiality of the likes of ‘community’ and ‘place’ as well as laying the philosophical foundations underpinning my understanding of ‘becoming’. These theoretical entanglements flow directly into an embodied, practice-based methodology/manifesto that embraces walking, slowness, and messiness as modes of knowing and becoming-with.

By attuning to the relational dynamics of Shoreburs’ urban wilds, this approach positions the researcher-body as a porous site of intra-action, where ethical response-abilities and sensory engagements blur the boundaries between observer, participant, and place. Together, these intertwined frameworks offer a diffractive praxis that not only interrogates the presence of littered bodies but co-creates with them, fostering radical, care-based reconfigurations of more-than-human belonging.

In addition to contributions towards emerging new materialist and posthumanist discourse, the significance of project extends beyond theory, unfolding as a praxis that entangles itself within the relational dynamics of urban wilds and community practices. By engaging with littered bodies - undesirables that breach boundaries and disturb order - as catalysts for embodied pedagogies, the research unsettles normative notions of place, pollution, and belonging.

In doing so, it invites a range of disciplines and practitioners interested in urban more-than-human community-building and place-making (for instance, urban planners and regulators, environmental conservationists and activists, artists, and local persons) to reimagine what belongs in public spaces and what it means to cultivate care, with even the most ‘inconvenient’ of entities.

Walking with these littered bodies, attuning to their embodied doings, and embracing the messiness of their intra-actions, this work does not merely observe Shoreburs; it becomes-with it. Through these situated practices, new modes of dis/belonging and ethical community-making germinate, offering ways to co-create multispecies futures that resist the pervasive harms of the Capitalocene.

Supervisors

Researcher biography

Rae Turpin (she/her) is a postdisciplinary researcher-practitioner exploring the entangled intersections of new materialism, posthumanism, and postqualitative methodologies. Her work weaves together theoretical inquiry and embodied practices to reimagine how multispecies communities coalesce amidst the ecological and social challenges of the Capitalocene.

With an academic background in the arts and humanities, coupled with professional experience in both established and grassroots non-profit organisations, Rae’s approach is underpinned her commitment to collaborative, situated, everyday research/practice. Based in and around Southampton, UK, she works with(in) more-than-human communities through creative and practice-led methods, exploring relational approaches to care, belonging, and place-making, particularly in urban wilds.

Her recent publications span topics such as agency, walking arts, and the philosophy of time in educational praxis, contributing to emerging dialogues on how embodied, ethico-onto-epistemological frameworks reshape our understanding of community and response-ability. A member of Collective Imagination Practice Community, Rae has led initiatives including the curation of practice-based ‘recipes of multispecies belonging,’ supported by international practitioners to inspire transformative interspecies engagements.

With a focus on nurturing curiosity and ethical engagement in academic and public spheres, Rae’s work invites us to linger with the messy, slow, vibrant relationalities that form our shared worlds. Through her practice, she aims to inspire transformative approaches to how we live, learn, and co-create within a richly more-than-human world, navigating uncertain times with response-ability and care.

Student website

www.raejturpin.com