ABSTRACT
Urbanisation is a global multidimensional process that is intricately interlinked with ideological processes of modernisation, industrialisation and rationalisation. Cities have become viewed as agents of development and change, promoting capitalistic ideals of forward thinking and innovation. The Global North and Western ideals are deemed the front runners of these processes. The adoption of these ideals and values have implications on all aspects of urban liveability, including urban nature and the wellbeing benefits derived from such spaces. To highlight how Eurocentric framing of urban nature has and continues to influence the type of urban nature constructed a historical overview of ways in which such places have been conceptualised and constructed within two former colonial towns, Qonce and Komani, in South Africa is given. An account is also given of how urban Xhosa-speaking residents in these towns experience and give meaning to the urban natures, and how many of these are informed by a particular ontological understanding. Such understanding and needs remain unacknowledged and not incorporated into the ways in which urban natures are being conceptualised in South African cities. A biocultural diversity approach is called for to give acknowledgement to the diversity of understandings and appreciation of urban nature and to promote alternative ways of being within cities that challenge metanarratives of urbanisation and modernisation.
