The Collaboratory looks to seed new connections by bridging fields of research and practice in the environmental humanities, education, and social sciences; environmental arts, regenerative design, and urban planning; and environmental/earth system sciences. We are a vibrant interdisciplinary community with the shared aim of establishing ‘critical forest studies’ as a collective platform for cultivating:
1. new collaborations across the humanities, arts/design, social and natural sciences
2. new reciprocities with diverse stakeholders, institutions, and communities
3. new ways of sharing and circulating knowledge with diverse publics
Respectful and responsible engagements with Indigenous perspectives and knowledges are central to the work of the Collaboratory, as are questions of how intergenerational relations with forests produce and perpetuate different histories and futurities. Child, youth, and community framed practices of co-creation form a shared commitment to reciprocal exchange and collective experimentation for many members of the collective.