Finding home in a new landscape through urban green space
Master of Health Psychology student Kate Campbell has been conducting walking interviews with recently arrived migrant women to understand how urban green space impacts wellbeing.
Kate is exploring the relationship between nature and mental health for recently arrived migrant women as her Master of Health Psychology thesis topic.
She was drawn to explore the role green spaces can play in mitigating the stress of everyday life from her own personal experience as a migrant woman.
Kate’s thesis seeks to understand how and why urban green spaces can offer solace for this group of people and unpack how nature can become a place to cope with the adversity of migrating to a new country. Kate describes how nature can often be the only constant amidst so much change.
“Urban green spaces often reminded participants of home and who they once were—it was a place to come back to themselves when their lives looked so different on the outside,” she says.
Kate conducted walking interviews with her participants in an urban green space of their choosing, in order to authentically embody the experience and impact that green spaces have on wellbeing.
She describes the walking interviews as enriching and thought-provoking, allowing her to explore the relationship between space and place in a nuanced way and illustrating the calming impact of green spaces.
"It was a really exciting way to collect data because much of the participants responses were in relation what we were walking past and what we were observing in the space," she says.
“Green spaces were a place to negotiate with their identity and the associated transitions that come with moving away from what was once known to you. Urban green space was the friend, the confidant, the family member that my participants didn’t have when first arriving here.”
From a tree in a park, a walk through the town belt, or a plot of grass on one of Wellington’s many hillsides. Kate’s thesis explores how these green spaces can offer an opportunity to reconnect and recenter amid newness.