Event information

Mangrove Stories of Large Ocean State Environmental Thrutopia

Tuesday 20th May 2025, 12:00-13:00 (BST)

This event is hosted by the Education in Small States Research Group (ESSRG) and the Centre for Comparative and International Research in Education (CIRE).

This event is also part of the School of Education's Bristol Conversations in Education (BCE) research seminar series. These seminars are free and open to the public.

Venue – Hybrid. Join the event in person or via Zoom. Please find Zoom and room details at the end of your order confirmation email.

Registration - Please register for this event on the Eventbrite page.

 

About the event

Speakers: Dr Terra Sprague (Narrative Inquirer and Lecturer, University of Bristol, School of Education).

What do you do when a narrative inquiry generates more conversations and stories than can be included in a single research output? You craft them into an academic novella. Come be transported to mangrove forests in the islands of the Pacific, Caribbean and Indian Ocean and hear stories of environmental Thrutopia.   

During the writing of her thesis on environmental resilience in Large Ocean States, many stories of living at the sharp end of climate change were left unshared. Extending the use of the Narrative Inquiry methodology used in her doctoral work, Terra has since been recrafting her doctoral thesis into a novel manuscript, sharing stories from her fieldwork which have not been previously published.   

In this session, Terra will share new vignettes and conversations from the Mangrove forests of Fiji, St Lucia and Mauritius. She will discuss the journey of shifting from academic to non-fiction writing and publishing, and her exploration of the genres Thrutopia and academic novella.