Re-storying the city

: applying urban perspectives to eco-storytelling

Abstract

Echoing Weber (1922), scholars and storytelling performers argue that post-Enlightenment rationalism and capitalism have diminished preceding vernacular traditions, in which the physical environment was interpreted through stories and was thus inherently meaningful or "enchanted" and deserving of care (Benjamin 1936, Nanson 2021). Oral storytelling is seen as ideally placed to reinvoke that imaginative, enchanted connection, through its non-technological performance and its provenance in pre-industrial traditions (Nanson 2007). Deliberate attempts to encourage environmentalist thought through storytelling performance/prose include Schneidau 2021, Lupton 2022, The Storytelling Choir 2022.

However, parallel scholarship in cultural geography, anthropology and oral history emphasises that imagination and narrative sensemaking have continued in our relationships with (post-)industrial environments (Cosgrove 1988, Ryden 1993, Summerfield 2004). By extension, “urban legend” and contemporary memory should contain narratives that also express the spirit of a place, and might be equally as valuable as older literature in re-engaging people with the landscape. Nevertheless, urban legends and other modern myths of place are underrepresented in contemporary UK storytelling, in favour of a romanticised view of a rural past. Omitting more contemporary material from environmentalist storytelling risks narrowing our appeal to excluding groups and individuals who find predominant tropes less relatable – with implications for class- and race-based inclusivity.

This thesis argues the need to bridge that gap. Historiographical analysis of prevailing attitudes in UK storytelling reveals that the popular associations of traditional tales with the rural romantic are an inherited imaginal response to cultural and economic change. Instead, this thesis reframes preferences for such material as a genre choice within a contemporary performance medium. It proposes a wider interpretation of enchantment and tradition, in which ‘modern legends’ and commercial media are given equal status with historical folktales. Through autoethnographic reflections on the authors’ own storytelling practice, and interviews with fellow storytellers and other creative practitioners, it evaluates ways of developing new tropes, poetics and material, to give drama and magic to the experience of modern space. Attention is given to pioneering works by other storytellers who evoke enchantment (and overt conservationism) through modern patterns of life and environmental realities eg Binderella (The Ragged Storytelling Collective, 2021), Nexus (Carl Gough, 2023). It argues that through engaging with such modern stories of place, wider audiences are engaged; and importantly, built environments are ‘re-enchanted’ as directly as green ones, and thus recognised as equally worthy of social and environmental attention.

Date of Award	Jul 2026
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Brighton
Supervisor	Craig Jordan-Baker (Supervisor) & Matthew Adams (Supervisor)