Listening to more-than-human voices. Co-creating ecologically just cities through love letters to nature.

Strengthening human-nature relationships is increasingly recognized as a key pathway to more just, liveable, and resilient cities. Yet, dominant anthropocentric worldviews continue to marginalize the agency, voice, and needs of more-than-human urban co-inhabitants. Building on the concepts of human-nature partnerships and resonance, this study explores how creative and relational methods can support more inclusive forms of capturing the various relationships urban residents hold towards urban nature. We conducted a citizen-engagement experiment in Dresden (Germany), inviting urban residents to write love letters to urban nature. From these 121 love letters, we performed a qualitative content analysis to assess two capacities essential for human-nature partnerships: (1) humans’ self-efficacy in listening to more-than-human voices and (2) non-human nature’s self-efficacy in speaking with its own voice.

First results show that affective, relational, and sensorially grounded descriptions frequently demonstrate a pronounced human capacity to listen to more-than-human voices - expressed through qualities such as openness, slowness, and compassion. At the same time, many letters convey a strong perception of non-human nature speaking with its own voice, for example, by acknowledgments of autonomy, agency, vitality, and sacredness. These two forms of self-efficacy often co-occur in moments described as atmospherically “magical,” where participants perceive themselves as addressed by nature while simultaneously recognizing their own ability to attune and respond. Overall, the findings suggest that affective resonance moments can strengthen both listening and speaking capacities within human-nature partnerships, while also coexisting with more familiar restorative effects such as calmness, relaxation, and recovery.

Our findings highlight that affective, imaginative, and relational practices, such as letter-writing to nature, offer a promising avenue to co-create cities that are liveable and just for both human and non-human inhabitants. Such practices amplify nature’s voice and strengthen citizens’ relational capacities to listen and respond to it.