It is time for us to accept that we are actually on the very last pages of our book. It has been more than three years since we, together as the ILA research community, have been thinking about what researching with proximity might do for our work. That said, we had all begun posing this question—just in different words—before this and felt excited about the shared research adventures ahead of us. While our research contexts, theoretical inspirations and messmates vary, we share the ethico-political interest of ‘staying with the trouble’ (Haraway 2016) and gathering around common matters of care (Puig de la Bellacasa 2017; van der Duim et al. 2017; Ren et al. 2018). That is, instead of acting as individual agents of critique, we enact research by positioning ourselves within the phenomenon at hand with the modes of receptivity and engagement (Scott 2017, 5).

As Bruno Latour (2004) so aptly puts it, critical engagement with the pending crisis has been at risk of running out of steam, as the critique is directed towards things that happen at a distance. This shift happens, to put it bluntly, when the critique is focused on revealing the stupidities of others or on offering moral guidelines or teachings about how to act or think in the Anthropocene. Or in the most destructive or paralysing case, the critique tries to assert that there is nothing to be done (see Haraway 2016, 3–4). So, instead of taking the task of educating the audiences about the ecological crisis in the North, we have wished to share research stories of our lived and embodied experiences that can affect the readers in personal ways (Roelvink 2015; Vannini 2015). We have joined the efforts of unsettling the abstract narratives of the Anthropocene by drawing focus on the possibilities of engaging differently with ordinary, everyday and multiple relations (Gibson et al. 2015; Instone 2015, 36).

A big part of our writings took place during the ‘unnormal’ times of the pandemic, where responsibility and respect were re-defined as keeping distance from other human bodies (Munar and Doering 2022). Although the pandemic made ethical negotiations between closeness and distance tangible, we would like to argue that somewhat similar kinds of ongoing negotiations form an inherent part of more-than-human relations as such (see also Valtonen and Pullen 2020). We can follow the recommendations to keep safe distance to the car in front of us, avoid feeding the ducks, stay away from fragile objects in a museum and walk merely on the marked trails, yet these kinds of easy-to-follow, one-fit-all rules do not exist, luckily in our view, for most of our daily encounters. Hence, we are thrown to relations with constant hesitation whether to lean in or step back, engage or give space—or something in the between. In Maria Puig de la Bellacasa’s (2017, 5) words, care is not about harmonic fusion, but ‘it can be about the right distance’.

By recognising how staying proximate intensifies relations, we have wished to approach proximity as an ongoing and uncertain process of becoming rather than a desirable goal as such. We also hope that this volume has succeeded in disrupting clear-cut categories of good or bad, sustainable or unsustainable, visiting or dwelling by staying proximate with untidy relations and entanglements (see Veijola et al. 2014). By doing so, we see that researching with proximity might also have helped to stretch our conventional understandings of mobility, tourism and leisure in the Anthropocene (see Hales and Caton 2017).

Many of our experiments have meant revisiting, rethinking and reimagining the supposedly mundane or known—that is, phenomena, concepts, relations, places and beings that we have in many cases learnt to take for granted. This pursuit has challenged us to cultivate the art of attentiveness towards proximate bodies, texts, technology, family homes, landscapes, forests, trees, weeds, lichens, parks, movies and theatres. We have engaged with the messiness of more-than-human relations through the notions of repetition, mundane, exceptional, atmosphere, fidelity, reverberation, rhythm, care, hospitality, fragility, sensitivity, touch, departure, narrative and intimacy, drawing focus to the intensities of our proximate relations. Among the many shared aspects of these research stories is the mode of attuning to relationships and our research messmates with curiosity and wonder. To follow Barad’s wording, we have engaged with our proximal relationships through a ‘mode of wonderment’ (Barad 2007, 391; see also Ogden et al. 2013).

In this book, we have been messing up and speculating rather than classifying, offering accurate representations or nailing things down. Instead of providing clear answers or claiming to solve the ecological crisis, we have tested different ways of attending to our proximate relations with a curiosity about what might happen or become (see Ingold 2015, viii). Therefore, it would feel wrong to end this book with a neat conclusion. Instead, the authors have provided some suggestions to encourage and support future research wanders with the idea of proximity. Again, what follows is not a ‘tick-the-boxes’ kind of list; rather, it is a compass or an ‘ethical pointer’ (Zylinska 2014, 19) that can help us to continue to engage with the mode of critical wonder in the Anthropocene. In David Scott’s (2017, 16) words, these suggestions could also be seen as clarifications that offer ‘successive, provisional resting points along the way where we gather our thoughts for further dialogical probing’.

Our Propositions

One of the challenging features of the Anthropocene is to keep challenging our anthropocentric imaginaries while accepting the unpredictability of what is to come. Despite the ever-accumulating knowledge and updated climate reports, the only opinion the environmental scientists seem to hold unanimously is that the transformations brought about by climate change and biodiversity loss will become ever more rapid. The seasons in the Arctic are becoming extremely volatile, shaping more-than-human entanglements in unforeseen ways. In the spirit of uncertainty and not knowing, we can keep checking the weather forecasts while packing our bags for research adventures, yet learn to become prepared to be unprepared.

In their chapter, Gunnar Thór Jóhannesson and Charina Ren approach research as a way to move around, gather and build up experiences and knowledge—to visit and encounter and travel with. Along with AyA Autrui and others, they encourage us to move towards and revisit what is already closest to our hearts. And when we let ourselves be touched by a philosophical work—which is also one of our suggestions—we should take those thoughts to walk with other human and nonhuman beings.

Our stories share a holistic, onto-epistemological premise to research that calls into question not only the fences placed between theory, methodology, method, analysis and results but also work and free time. By sharing our stories of slowing down and lingering with ordinary places, routinised events and everyday relations, our writings have revealed how researching with forms an inseparable part of our lives. We explore ethical possibilities for ‘living well’ in times when the very notion of ‘life’ is at risk and fragmented (Zylinska 2014). Throughout this book, we have focused on the importance of acknowledging and appreciating friendships and kinships as a way of knowing and imagining how to live with our shared fragilities (Haraway 2016; Ogden et al. 2013, 17). Indeed, one of the most beautiful aspects of our work is the possibility to engage with the modes of generous receptivity, wonder and care with those who are in so many ways significant to us (Scott 2017, 14).

The authors in this book recommend attuning to the entanglements, liveliness and incomprehensible events of more-than-human life through art, folktales, cinema, photos, maps and different forms of measurement. As Phillip Vannini reminds us in the foreword of this book, many important aspects of life cannot be fully, and not even close, measured with balance sheets or customer satisfaction metrics (see also Veijola and Kyyrö 2020). Hence, we recommend engaging with transdisciplinary gatherings and welcoming human and nonhuman mentors to join. This can mean, for instance, seeking proximity with those who are already affected by the manifestations of climate change and staying open to their stories of transformation (Roelvink 2015).

The chapters of this book offer ideas for re-embodying relations and the world of bodies with all our senses. We have suggested proximity as an ethico-political relation where the ‘right distance’ becomes negotiated through situated and embodied engagements with multiple others. As Barad (2012, 206) so beautifully puts it, ‘so much can happen in a touch: where an infinity of other beings, other spaces, other times – are aroused’.

Finally, we hope that this book has succeeded in awakening a desire to hear, listen and learn from the modes of storytelling that go beyond non-verbal communication.

Let’s stay in touch!