nature divide. Thus, by acknowledging the various under-
represented stories with respect to language, labour,
agency, and learning, and by using these narratives as a
means to fill that social gap, my hope is that urban for-
estry can become more integrated. This is how narratives
can become powerful sources for integrative processes.
By using story and dialogue to understand how urban
forestry workers feel and perceive, this offers a richer
contextual description and data to better form decisions.
By speaking with, observing, and being on site with
field arborists, we get new meaning and perspective
on the implications for policies and procedures. It is a
richer, more holistic way of informing the field, and it is
a way of reducing bias. This is particularly true because
in my background research, I could not find studies in
urban forestry research in Canada that interviewed and
quoted field arborists on these socio-ecological issues.
Outdoor workers who deal with trees (i.e. living organ-
isms) have many differing layers of complexity with
which they contend and that they consider, both con-
sciously and subconsciously. Arborists navigate the urban
forest differently by working under a unique system. It
is true that workers obtain ISA certification and special-
ized skills, they read field manuals, and many embark
on continuing education courses, which are all very
important for professional development. However, to
this end, arborists develop their own way of negotiating
the forest that is not currently documented in texts;
the lack of documentation must change, as their expe-
riences are invaluable to the future of urban forestry.
Beyond identifying its usefulness and necessary
perspective, and to better describe the paradigm
shift that I am proposing, I offer a multi-modal con-
ceptual framework using the anatomy of a tree
in Part 2, in the next issue of City Trees.
Acknowledgements
Doctoral Committee: Dr. L. Anders Sandberg,
Dr. Cecil Konijnendijk van den Bosch,
Dr. Leesa Fawcett, Dr. Don Dippo
References
Bardekjian, A. (2016). How perspectives of field arborists
and tree climbers are useful for understanding and man-
aging urban forests. The Nature of Cities March 24, 2016.
Bardekjian, A. (2015). Learning From Limbwalkers:
Arborists' Stories in Southern Ontario's Urban
Forests. (Accession No. 10315/30088) [Doctoral
dissertation, Faculty of Environmental Studies,
York University, Toronto, Ontario]. YorkSpace.
Eisenhardt, K. (1989). Building Theories
from Case Study Research. The Academy of
Management Review, 14(4), 532-550.
Jones, O., & Cloke, P. (2002). Tree Cultures: The Place of
Trees and Trees in Their Place. New York, NY: Oxford.
Kuhn, T. S. (1962). The Structure of Scientific
Revolutions. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Rangan, H., & Kull, C. (2009). What makes ecology
'political'?: Rethinking 'scale' in political ecology.
Progress in Physical Geography, 33(1), 28-45.
Robbins, P. (2004). Political Ecology: A Critical
Introduction. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.
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Photo by Dylan Stevenson
