Abstract

In the face of escalating environmental and social crises, this essay explores how it might be possible to reweave the threads that connect people to one another, collectively to place, and jointly toward possible futures. Highlighting the potential of a renewed human-environment interface across a range of perspectives and illustrations, and drawing upon concepts such as reinhabitation and practices of placemaking, it is considered here how making connections with people and places that might otherwise be taken for granted can help foster more grounded experiences and cultivate imaginations at the same time. Confronting apparent assertions from some quarters that humankind must move further away from “nature” to address current crises, the central aim of this intervention is to examine how a commitment toward deeper engagement with the world around us can stoke aspirations and attitudes for positive change.