(Abstract) Ageing as a factor in good relations: Tapping into experiential knowledge of older people for shaping future more-than-human relations

The need for fostering better relations with more-than-human nature is evident as ecological emergencies are changing not only our natural world but also our societies. To develop a fuller understanding of what are “good relations”, we need to bring together different forms of knowledge of local environments, taking into account multisensorial, experiential, and societal dimensions. The creative co-constitution of relations in the more-than-human world takes place as temporal processes. An important factor in these relations is the role of ageing, as a human and more-thanhuman reality. Yet, despite its inevitability, ageing is either dismissed or discriminated against in modern societies (Comincioli, Hakoköngäs & Masoodian 2022), with older people and their knowledge and experiences considered increasingly less relevant in addressing future relations. We, however, argue that tapping into the experiences and knowledge of older people is valuable in understanding past, and imagining and fostering future environmental relationships. Therefore, we propose developing research methods based on creative and artistic approaches that facilitate collecting, analysing, and reporting of experiential knowledge of older adults regarding their relations with more-than-human nature. Unlike other multi- or inter-disciplinary research which bring approaches from different fields together, our trans-disciplinary practice of research is, to begin with, formed in dialogue across disciplinary boundaries and combine methodologies from, for instance, social sciences and arts (Aula 2022). We utilise multisensorial approaches such as sensobiography (Aula 2021, 2023) to focus on creative relations with the environment as an organic part of intimate entanglement with nonhuman nature in building resilience against environmental degradation.