#845: Partnering with Multispecies Discomfort: Fear-facing as Multispecies Sensemaking in a STEAM Summer Program

This study explores multispecies discomfort as a mediator of socioecological sensemaking for youth participating in an arts-integrated STEAM program focused on resource ecology and cartographic art. We share early insights from an observation-based activity with live insects. The program, Cartographic Creatures, engaged youth in modeling field ecology practices, having participants observe insects specimens both inside and outside. Our video-based analysis traces one youth, Gabriel, somatically shifting his body from an affect of fear to fear-facing while meeting a live cockroach. In an additional ethnographic analysis, we also bring in the perspective of the facilitator and the multispecies perspective of the cockroach, drawing attention to their own fear-facing and roles in the collective experience of sensemaking across species. These analyses aim to expand the way we understand the discomfort and fortitude youth, educators, and the more-than-human demonstrate everyday while inhabiting shared spaces of multispecies relation.