The Ladder of Multispecies Participation: Moving Towards a More Convivial Urban Planning

Cities are brimming with more-than-human life. But cities are also responsible for both planned and unplanned forms of violence towards other species, where the exploitation of nature continues to destroy ecosystems. To prevent further biodiversity loss, we need to rethink the politics of who makes cities from a multispecies perspective. In response, this paper explores how urban planning can expand understandings of and approaches to participation, to include species with whom we do not share language or perception. To do this we draw on Arnstein’s seminal work and introduce a ladder of multispecies participation – an analytical tool to discuss the various forms that multispecies participation might take in urban planning. Focusing specifically on the movement of kittiwakes, a small, red-listed gull, into towns and cities in Northern Norway, we demonstrate how multispecies participation can range from paternalism and recognition, in which kittiwakes are passive subjects to be managed by humans, to a form of conviviality that opens up the possibility for kittiwakes to be active agents in urban planning.