The Detroit River Story Lab: Community narratives and ecosystems in Great Lakes research

Abstract

The Detroit River ecosystem has been the focus of extensive and sustained environmental restoration efforts over the past fifty years. These efforts are rightly understood to play an important role in the revitalization of river-adjacent communities. The positive ecological and community impacts of such efforts can potentially be amplified by attending to the narrative infrastructure that inevitably shapes and conditions local residents' responses to them. The Detroit River Story Lab, a new interdisciplinary initiative at the University of Michigan, partners with local organizations to strengthen narrative infrastructure through place-based education, nonprofit journalism, and public heritage projects that seek to reconnect residents with the river and thereby increase support for and participation in environmental restoration activities.