ABSTRACT
Cultural ecosystem services (CES) are an epicentre for relational thinking in interdisciplinary environmental science, and yet the study of CES is not truly relational. We ask, what would research on cultural ecosystem services look like if it were truly relational? Even in a purely economic context, a relational understanding of a service must include what is paid or given in return. We contend that (A) a relational understanding of CES requires changing the definition from nature’s non-material benefits for people, to the work done for non-material relationships between people and nature. (B) Relational CES research must represent the relationship between CES and benefits through a feedback cycle by which nature-based experiences ↔ interest ↔ capability and relationships ↔ more experiences. (C) We argue that relational research of CES would require the focused study of how five factors affect CES: (1) biome, ecological integrity, diversity, and other ecological and landscape attributes; (2) senses engaged; (3) attention; (4) human companions and their views and values; (5) personal interactions with particular non-human entities. Rather than being an ill-fitting subfield within a hegemonic study of ecosystems’ economic contributions, CES research could be the centre of a bold new agenda for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research.
