Researching and writing for a bilingual project on the rewilding of children, the de-domestication of parenthood in the context of Welsh land use, rewilding ideas, traditional and modern agricultural practice, belonging and protest. The project has so far included work published in the New Welsh Review, a Hay Festival appearance, and the TedX talk, and will culminate in two extended wilderness research event and book proposal.
The theme in a nutshell
In Mid-Wales, as elsewhere, a polarisation is in effect which lays the blame for biodiversity loss and climate change with farmers, often written off as having only profit in mind. Protest organisations are predominantly English-speaking, as are responses to this through the arts and humanities (although this is improving and there are notable exceptions). This bilingual project is designed specifically to cross these battle lines, give context to farming practices, highlight the cultural and social networks lost by the misunderstanding of farming then and now, and add nuance and meaning to the land itself through a slow, mindful, playful encounter with the land. In the words of poet Patrick Kavanagh: “To know fully even one field or one land is a lifetime’s experience. In the world of poetic experience it is depth that counts, not width.”
A curated social media conversation and the first draft of the manuscript are planned for mid 2021.
