Abstract
We propose more-than-human (MTH) geomorphologies as a conceptual reframing for undertaking socially situated, geographical and holistic landscape science. With increasing momentum in the environmental social sciences, more-than-human approaches offer less anthropocentric ways of perceiving landscapes and associated knowledge production. Here, the history of process conceptualisations in geomorphology, the study of the development and resultant landscape, is revisited from its geologic origins to its contemporary geographic framings. Historical and process geomorphologies have been separated throughout much of this history. Process philosophy, originated by Whitehead in 1925 but considered by geomorphologists much later, potentially offers a broader consideration of landscapes as relational and socially produced. This relational perspective shares many connections with Indigenous perspectives. MTH geomorphologies are presented as a logical extension to this history through its consideration of non-human agency. We ground our approach using a case study from New Zealand, showing how MTH approaches expand earlier approaches to landscape analysis. We discuss ways in which MTH geomorphologies could be facilitated and conducted in practice, emphasising the place-based and holistic nature of the method that makes for the best use of the best knowledge in each situation. We suggest MTH geomorphologies as a way to move beyond ‘who speaks for nature’, to allowing nature to speak for itself through more attentive practices that listen and understand landscapes.
Introduction
As Rights for Nature frameworks increasingly shape how landscapes are understood worldwide, they open space for reconsidering both what landscapes are and how they might be studied in ways that recognise their dynamic and relational nature. Despite decades of critique by scholars, scientists, artists, authors, and activists, the environment continues to be understood by many as external and subservient to society. While many Indigenous cultures have long understood living and non-living non-humans as relational and agentic, and as early as 1867 John Muir called for respect for ‘the rights of all creation’ (Nash, 1989), geomorphological approaches are only beginning to embrace related ideas. Rights for Nature frameworks in particular have seen growing scholarly and political interest in thinking through nature relationally and in terms of mutual obligation, visible through Māori-led initiatives in Aotearoa New Zealand (ANZ) which secured legal personhood for the Whanganui River (Te Awa Tupua (Whanganui River Claims Settlement) Act 2017) and Aboriginal ethics in Australia (e.g., RiverofLife et al., 2020). While it is important not to conflate rights framings with Indigenous worldviews (Coombes, 2020), such developments offer hopeful potential to reshape environmental governance, scientific paradigms, and disciplinary boundaries (Boyd, 2017). On a more conceptual level, a recent wave of scholarship emphasises the ways in which landscapes can exhibit agency, actively participating in and shaping the relations and processes of which they are a part (Bobbette and Donvan, 2019; Germaine and Gonin, 2024). As geographers, geomorphologists, and the like consider how humans may be decentred within their disciplines (e.g., Bennett, 2010; Van Dooren et al., 2016), here we ask what a more-than-human approach might mean for geomorphology.
Geomorphology, the study of Earth surface processes and the topographic forms that result, arose from the discipline of geology throughout the nineteenth century (Chorley et al., 1964; Church, 2010). Partial disentanglement reflected geologic concerns that lie primarily beneath the earth’s surface and look back through time while geomorphology is primarily concerned with the Earth’s surface and looking forward (Tinkler, 1985). The emergence of geomorphology as a discrete sub-discipline in the English-speaking world later in the nineteenth century (Chorley et al., 1964) found framing within Geography. Its relations with differing associated subjects throughout its history reflect changes in the drivers and priorities of knowledge and its uses (Church, 2010). Its growth from within natural sciences developed a limiting binary between landscapes as passive backdrops and humans as active agents (Castree, 2003). Technological advances and paradigm shifts as founding theories were developed, discussed and discarded pushed the progress of the discipline, changing perceptions of ‘process’ and influencing the conduct of geomorphic inquiry (e.g., Church, 2010). Process philosophy suggested by Whitehead (1920), and more recently considered by Rhoads (2006), combined historically separate themes expressed through historical (landscape evolution focused) and process geomorphology (study of processes currently shaping landscapes). The combination of these often-disparate geomorphological approaches requires a relational outlook in which humans and non-humans are interconnected, thereby opening the door for linkages with socially situated science (Rhoads, 2006).
Socially situated science moves away from viewing knowledge as objective, instead recognising that science is situated within social, cultural, and political contexts (e.g., Haraway, 1988). For geomorphology, this has prompted recognition of humans’ role in shaping landscapes alongside physical processes. Science, or in this instance geomorphology, is never neutral. It is shaped by why we research (motivations), the epistemological stance from which we research (perspectives), how the research is conducted (practices) and what the research informs (applications). Critical Physical Geography (CPG) has emerged as one response to the importance of reflecting upon each of these dimensions by interrogating the social production of geographic knowledge. We build on this trajectory specifically relating more-than-humanism to geomorphic practice.
More-than-human scholarship refers to a broad set of work seeking to decentre people as the agentic subjects of social scientific research, bringing in a range of other actors both living and non-living (“more-than-human”, nd). It is an integral part of the turn towards recognition of relationality, or the idea that entities are co-produced through a network of relationships (Whatmore, 2002). Some instances of this ‘ontological turn’ have been criticised for neglecting the influence of Indigenous theory (Sundberg, 2014; Todd, 2016); more recent work from colonised places has engaged more explicitly with these relations (e.g., Bawaka et al., 2015; Rose, 2011; Thomas, 2015).
As an example of current rights for nature work in ANZ, the Whanganui River has been granted legal personhood 1 (Te Awa Tupua (Whanganui River Claims Settlement) Act 2017) (e.g., Hutchinson, 2014; Ruru, 2018). These perspectives are grounded in, and inseparable from Mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge). As part of the Act the river is recognised as an indivisible and living whole (Macpherson, 2023) including its physical and metaphysical elements. Although these developments can be perceived to represent a significant step forward for the rights of nature, the granting of personhood can imply the river itself does not hold enough intrinsic value and must be elevated to human equivalence for such justices (Coombes, 2020; Grear, 2020). As such, care must be taken when acknowledging agency so as not to uphold the human-centric ideals of the Anthropocene, which is limited when moving towards socio-natural perspectives (Thomas et al., 2025) as absent and/or exploitive relationships take the place of relationality. Instead, agency should be considered intrinsic to both the human and non-human across the entire spectrum of relationships, thus employing a more-than-human approach (Abram, 1996). Bennett (2010) refers to this idea as vibrant matter. The non-humans are agents with tendencies of their own – actants. An actant is something with its own efficacy and ability to enact change (Latour, 1996). Taking this into account when undertaking geomorphological enquiry engages with geo-ethical considerations, seeking to protect the welfare of humans and non-humans alike (Schäfer, 2021; Sharp et al., 2022).
With these caveats, capabilities and possibilities in mind, we put forward more-than-human (MTH) geomorphologies as a conceptual reframing of geomorphic research that is geographical, holistic and socially situated. As implied by the pluralist use of geomorphologies, we do not propose a singular or stagnant mode of thinking. Instead MTH geomorphologies are suggested as being plural and evolving. They are an invitation to experiment with different forms of process-orientated and relational forms of inquiry.
We use the history of geomorphology to discuss the changing understandings of process within the subject and more recent scholarship that reconsiders this as ontological rather than methodological. The potential of MTH geomorphologies to build on this is considered as it questions not just how knowledge is influenced by the social but how knowledge itself is participatory, recognising and embracing geomorphology as a socially situated and holistic endeavour that works across worlds. MTH geomorphologies are proposed as an extension of process philosophy. Geography not only provides the ethical point of departure from process philosophy to MTH geomorphologies (in the form of CPG and geo-ethics), but is inherently entwined given its consideration of how processes are entangled within place, power, and the resultant obligations that arise. While the focus of the following is firmly within geomorphology, the MTH approach we envision is not possible without meaningful engagements with researchers from other related disciplines such as ecology, engineering, and cultural studies, etc. This analysis of MTH landscape enquiry is then moved from an abstract ‘way of thinking’ to a grounded case study that overviews changing approaches to landscape analysis in ANZ.
Despite this grounding, the manuscript represents a global contribution. ANZ is a significant example in an international context given its active landscapes as a result of geologic youth and avant-garde approach to river rights. The specifics of MTH geomorphologies will play out differently in different places with different histories. Given the background of the authors the focus is also centred on fluvial geomorphology, however, MTH geomorphologies are intended to be applicable in other scenarios.
A brief history of geomorphology revisited
This section demonstrates how MTH geomorphologies arise from and respond to historical context. We trace how different understandings of process have shaped geomorphic thought to pave the way for how process might look through a MTH lens. How MTH geomorphologies build on recent social approaches to geomorphology is demonstrated in the following section.
Clarifying meanings of process
‘Process’ is a term used differently throughout the following section. Traditional process geomorphology is a methodological approach that focuses on explaining form and is referred to in the subsequent two sub-sections. It is a mechanism which acts upon an entity. The concept of process, referred to as relational, and on which the remainder of the paper is framed, is a Whiteheadian one. While rejecting static form it operates at an ontological level showing that entities themselves are processes and are thus in continual states of becoming (Whitehead, 1920, 1925).
Process as landscape sculptor
Geomorphology grew from increasing interests of geologists in erosion (McGee, 1888) and was firmly grounded in geological concerns for earth surface development (Bryan, 1950), looking back through time (Tinkler, 1985). Process was primarily understood as a long-term mechanism through which landscapes evolved. Debates on causal processes such as principles of eustasy and isostasy provided ‘multiple working hypotheses’ in attempts to explain how continents remain above water despite proven, continuous denudation (Chamberlin, 1909). Others saw geomorphology as spatially concerned with a focus on the description of physical characteristics of landscapes (Barrows, 1923).
Historical versus process geomorphology
An elegant synthesis of time-based geological evolution with place-based geomorphic description led Davis (1909) to create a model of landscape development along with a slew of new vocabulary and definitions. This geo-historical approach to geomorphology sought to explain landscape evolution through time by reconstructing events that may have led to landscape development, reflecting upon the operation of general processes in the context of individual settings and across temporal scales (Rhoads, 2006). Before long cracks appeared in the set of unalterable rules that underpinned Davis’ model. Any empirical inconsistencies were explained away as localised anomalies or artefacts of overly literal readings with emphasis on grand-scale explanations of development (Beckinsale and Chorley, 1991). Advances in engineering and hydrology prompted greater emphasis on ‘minor landforms’ rather than broad-scale analysis (Tinkler, 1985). Strahler (1952) called for a greater focus on process occurring over contemporary time scales. A key tenet of this period of geomorphology was the idea that landscape change could be understood as the product of interactions between process and form at a given point in time. This ‘timeless’ focus on contemporary landform morphodynamics disregarded past conditions as an important indicator of future change. A physical science perspective emphasised concerns for physics and chemistry at the heart of geomorphic enquiry (Rhoads, 2006), as part of a broader ‘quantitative revolution’ in physical geography (Burton, 1963).
Process as measurable
With the emergence of equilibrium-based systems models, process was increasingly conceptualised as a measurable interaction among variables operating under boundary conditions. The idea of process as a mechanistic flux brought about a transformation in approaches to geomorphic enquiry, largely pushing aside contextual concerns that read and interpret the history of landscapes (Chorley, 1962; Chorley and Kennedy, 1971; Strahler, 1992). This approach was critiqued by some as being overly reductionist, abstracted from reality, and failing to consider large spatio-temporal scales (Baker and Twidale, 1991), and the uniqueness of individual landscapes (Massey, 1999) (to the disapproval of many (e.g., Wooldridge, 1959)). Advances in remote sensing, computation and absolute dating techniques markedly enhanced these process-based understandings in geomorphology throughout the 21st century (e.g., Church, 2010). As the Davisian model was left behind, the search for universal laws to describe mechanisms of landform change began. Recognising the complexity of controls upon landscape systems and the range of influencing variables acting upon them, experimental approaches such as physical models and laboratory studies became increasingly popular (Schumm and Kahn, 1972; Wohl, 2013). These developments in systems theory required a simplified (and diluted) reality and were accompanied by wondrous spaghetti diagrams of interactions and feedback loops (Chorley and Kennedy, 1971). Description of landscapes as non-linear systems was characteristic of complexity approaches (Phillips, 2003). Process became not just ‘isolated mechanisms’ but ‘dynamic interactions’ across scales which could be amplified or suppressed through feedbacks. The systems themselves are overdetermined, with their landforms and processes not having a single cause (Phillips, 2003). Processes are co-existent and co-mingling with some more important at times than others. Geomorphology, no longer tied to a sense of place, became increasingly theoretical (Blue, 2019), pushing aside concerns for the individuality of landscapes (Hartshorne, 1939).
Despite this focus on mechanistic and measurable process, geomorphic practice remained largely reliant on abductive reasoning, where the most likely conclusion is inferred from a set of incomplete results (Frodeman, 1995). This is a common reality in geomorphology where datasets may be incomplete due to restrictions of access, erosion, and the dynamic and unique nature of study sites. Employing hermeneutic reasoning to ‘read the landscape’ (Brierley et al., 2013, 2021, 2022) and interpret likely explanations from incomplete observations (Downs and Piégay, 2019) enables geomorphologists to understand where general rules and patterns apply and where site-specific differences are also an important part of understanding phenomena.
Nonetheless, present day geomorphology remains concerned with the nature of data gathering. Increasing importance of Big Data provides a wealth of information. Digital rivers, artificial rivers constructed using computers (Goodchild, 2012) began to be constructed to answer what-if scenarios and explore form-process linkages (Brown and Pasternack, 2019). This was deemed a result of greater data availability and new information sources from remote sensing. This shift reflects a broader movement across the Earth sciences toward data-driven, numerically intensive modelling, where machine learning and deep learning methods are increasingly used to integrate large datasets with process-based understanding in order to provide more accurate and consist interpretations of complex natural systems (Reichstein et al., 2019). However, digital rivers have often fallen into the trap of becoming overly embedded in concerns for micro-scale processes, characteristic of process geomorphology (Fryirs et al., 2019), at the detriment of catchment scale engagement. Movements away from positivism and structuralism occurred across the social sciences (Church, 2010) as data and quantitative methods alone were not enough to accurately represent Earth. Yet, geomorphology had not yet shared such a re-enchantment (Baker and Twidale, 1991) with focus remaining on understanding landscapes through measurement, rather than situated experience.
Process as relational
The dualism between the historical-qualitative and process-quantitative geomorphology prohibited prospects for meaningful engagement between the two (Sack, 1992). In light of this disciplinary tug-of-war, Rhoads (2006) suggested a reflection on the work of Alfred Whitehead, and later Nicholas Rescher, to conflate them. Both were proponents of process philosophy, or the idea that existence is best understood in terms of processes instead of material objects. This framing challenges the mechanistic materialism within which process geomorphology is steeped. Instead, it acts to extend the scope of process geomorphology to include historical geomorphology (Rhoads, 2006). It contends that propensity for change is the most important component of geomorphological phenomena and that instead of being comprised of inert matter, landscapes are ‘process amalgamations’ and that these processes operate across multiple spatio-temporal scales (Rhoads, 2006). Process philosophy also acknowledges that complex natural systems may often be unquantifiable and thus require qualitative representation. Framed this way, nature is a structure of evolving processes that is in a ‘continuous stream of occurrence’ (Whitehead, 1920, 1925). Thus, as a consequence of this vitality, nature can be known as vibrant matter (Bennett, 2010). This vitality is not a soul or divine act of god but is intrinsic. Everything is the result of experience as it is the building blocks of reality. The speculative nature of Whitehead’s philosophy doesn’t necessarily accept inherited knowledge, but instead asks what thought might become by reorganising how we think about reality (Roberts, 2024). Such reframed assertions of natural systems that rarely operate outside the bounds of human influence present prospects for a generative epistemology.
Latour (1993) posited that the tendency to separate nature and society is a misleading modern construction arising from the Enlightenment period. In actuality this dualism has never been complete given that hybrids that blur this distinction are constantly proliferating (Latour, 1993). For example, the process of erosion is difficult to separate from the community it affects, and the policies required to respond to it. Processes such as erosion do not occur on benign backdrops. Space allows multiple processes, both physical and social, to co-exist, causing space itself to constantly evolve (Massey, 2005). These considerations impact knowledge production. Similar to the relational approach discussed by Latour (1993) and Massey (2005), Haraway’s (1988) rejection of the ‘god-trick’ and neutral science favours the consideration that knowledge is shaped by the researcher themselves. While complete abandonment of the scientific foundations of which geomorphic knowledge is built is unnecessary, it can still learn from social theories (Lane, 2001). Although geomorphic processes often need to be studied (temporarily) in isolation to enable understandings, researchers should not lose sight of what has been excluded (Lane, 2001).
Provocations from political ecology
We see more-than-human geomorphologies as a reframing that draws together generative aspects of earlier approaches, falling broadly under the umbrella of political ecology. In doing so, it inherits critical attention to power and knowledge, while extending this concern to the agencies and relationalities of non-human materials.
Political ecology touted unequal power relations and a capitalist political economy as the destabiliser of human-environment relations (Walker, 2005). It arose from the social sciences with the aim of democratising environmental decisions by more evenly distributing the balance of power (Swyngedouw et al., 2002). More recently, influenced by contested assertions of the Anthropocene (Thomas et al., 2025), political geology considers how geological knowledge has been shaped by culture and politics and how differing worldviews understand this (Bobbette, 2021). Although, it has been criticised for becoming increasingly distanced from landscape studies as primary focus turned to cultural and social matters. Recent work in political ecology has sought to overcome anthropocentric considerations, attending more carefully to the material, and dismantling the socio-natural divide (e.g., Enns and Bersaglio, 2025; Whatmore, 2013). For example, Samuelson and colleagues (2023) demonstrate how a relational approach to river repair can offer very different possibilities for what ‘successful’ restoration might look like. MTH geomorphologies draw upon explicit considerations of the non-human having active roles in political and ecological struggles.
Emerging approaches to the study of physical landscapes increasingly build directly upon guidance from scholars from the other side of the socio-physical divide, and associated assertions of ‘socio-natures’ (Castree, 2003; Sywngedouw, 1996). For example, socio-geomorphology attends that landscapes are not merely formed by natural/geomorphic processes but social ones as well (Ashmore, 2015). In a sense, these assertions reflect greater uptake of landscape sciences in an applied context since the 1960s, drawing attention to which geomorphology was used in which ways for which purposes. Increasingly, ideas of conservation and rehabilitation became tied to the sustainability agenda as part of ‘applied geomorphology’ (e.g., Cooke and Doornkamp, 1978). Two major shifts in geomorphic practice resulted. Application of general principles to issues at specific places led to suggestions that landscapes are partly the result of their own environmental context rather than the inevitable outcome of deterministic laws (Phillips, 2007) thus challenging command and control assertions associated with engineering-based geomorphic practices. Second, geomorphologists considered the subjective discussion of the world as it ‘could’ be, or the idea of changing landscapes, rather than just its current, observable form (Funtowicz and Ravetz, 1991). Greater dialogue with a wider variety of stakeholders embraced a wider range of knowledges and perspectives (including ideas of co-production and socio-natural systems), prospectively improving physical outcomes for landscapes (Ashmore, 2015; Mould et al., 2017). In keeping with a more-than-human perspective, socio-geomorphology understands that these relationships are bi-directional with both the animate and inanimate, the human and non-human having influence on the other.
Ethnogeomorphology (Wilcock et al., 2013) continued political ecology’s cultural focus in response to the continued marginalisation of non-technocentric knowledges. This relational approach allows landscapes to ‘speak back’, grounding knowledge production and use in/through lived experiences. Specific emphasis is places on practices that do not subsume Indigenous knowledges into existing western methods (Wilcock et al., 2013). For example, Wilkinson et al. (2020) relate such principles to Mātauranga Māori in ANZ, a dynamic way of knowing based on an understanding of the world through genealogies (in that all nature is descended from atua or Māori gods). Similar framings are proposed by Koppes and King (2020). Koppes (2022) employs a braided river metaphor to represent the interweaving of multiple knowledge forms (pluralism) as component channels of a braided river morphology.
CPG builds directly on roots in political ecology (Lave, 2015). A geographic lens views landscapes not just as biophysical systems but as products of unequal power relations such as resource control, legal regimes, and colonial land management. Lave (2015) suggested that collaborative practice within physical and human geography, for example, the integration of geomorphic science with community knowledge, can improve environmental outcomes and actively influence policy and governance structures. Even the conduct of research itself has a geography, with the places and contexts of inquiry shaping the investigation undertaken (Livingstone, 2003). Geography itself is socially constructed – it does not just describe nature, it actively produces it through ever-changing bi-directional relationships (Swyngedouw, 1999). Márton (2022) goes as far as to say that everything only exists as a consequence of these interactions and the relationships that result.
While this more social constructive approach recognises alternative ways of framing environmental research, it does not directly consider the kind of intrinsic non-human agency described by Whitehead (1920) and Rescher (1996) or Bennett (2010). Similarly, it acknowledges the constant interaction of environmental and social systems, both from the perspectives of social and physical scientists, but still posits them as separate entities. Approaches which begin by centring the non-human (e.g., a river) offer an alternative pathway to consider the dynamic basis of geomorphology.
MTH geomorphologies as a holistic approach
The value of non-human agency
Agency
A key component of MTH geomorphologies is the idea of an intrinsic value within the non-human, a material vibrancy (Bennett, 2010), thus rethinking traditional metaphysical divisions between humans and nature. In her discussion of a vibrant materiality, Bennett (2010) suggested that the reflection of the material as dead, inanimate matter encouraged ideas of human dominion. Macfarlane (2025) notes that even our modes of address towards landscapes and the non-human reduces them to stuff; the river that flows, not the river who flows. Such framings draw legitimacy from archaic accounts of the ‘divine human’ created by a god to have elevated status on Earth compared to other beings (both living and non) present in many religious beliefs. Conversely, in Anishnaabe cosmology the Sky Woman became the landscapes, in turn designating how living beings would be organised upon her (Watts, 2013). Non-human beings chose how they interacted with each other, implicitly implying their agency or ability to affect their surroundings. Wilcock et al. (2013) think along similar lines in their discussion of ethnogeomorphology referring to landscapes as sentient. Thus, the idea of a non-human agency, or material vitality shared by all bodies, acts to close the gap between the human and the non-human, both by bringing the human off a throne and elevating the non-human to a seat at the table. This sense of commonality leads to considerations of the non-human as important actants and a more ecological and generative treatment of the environment. To do so MTH geomorphologies draw on a complex systems notion of agency, wherein it is not confined to discrete actors but rather emerges through ongoing relations. These processes are co-constituted by human and non-humans, blurring distinctions between action and material transformation. A shift to the idea that the non-human has agency offers ways of thinking that induce a generative political will (Bennett, 2010).
The concept of non-human agency offers one way of theorising advocacy by geomorphologists for rivers to be enabled to heal themselves (Kondolf, 2011), and to be given room to move (e.g., Brierley et al., 2023; Piégay et al., 2005). Allowing a river to ‘be a river’ (i.e., Brierley et al., 2019; Hikuroa et al., 2021), and associated geomorphic processes such as flooding, sediment transport and channel change, is key to river restoration (Florsheim et al., 2008; Kondolf, 2011; Williams et al., 2020). Yet, the idea of ‘doing nothing’, that is, passive restoration, has been a significant barrier to allowing the river to reclaim its floodplain as this is often not seen as acceptable by the community (without associated public education) (Kondolf, 2011). This can be seen as stemming from a lack of appreciation of non-human agency. The river has the ability to do the work that is best for it, it just needs to be allowed to do so. Convergence of thinking with traditional perspectives, such as Daoist notions of wu wei (actionless), aligns with such practices (Brierley et al., 2025a).
Relationality
However, just as Bennett (2010) did not seek to ‘horizontalize’ the more-than-human completely but rather facilitate more communication channels between humans and non-humans, a non-human agency should not negate the individuality of which all matter is a part. Granting ‘equal seats at the table’ allows for new and more effective relationships between all members. Valuing nature relationally promotes belonging and emotional connections, stimulating people to treat nature as family rather than a commodity (Ghijselinck, 2023). These dynamic connections facilitate a relational understanding where matter is no longer an unalterable substance (Rhoads, 2006), the world is a combination of numerous interwoven ‘prehensions’ (Whitehead, 1925). In this way the fluency of landscapes is appreciated, offering prospect to overcome the ‘fallacy of misplaced concreteness’ (Whitehead, 1925). This is not a new concept. For example, it lies at the core of Māori (ANZ’s first settlers) conceptualisations of landscapes (Hikuroa et al., 2021).
As recognised by many Indigenous communities, relationships between material (outer) and metaphysical (inner) landscapes highlight non-human dimensions in which a spiritual ecology underlies notions of morphodynamics (Cooper, 2019). Although one must be careful to note that an intrinsic vitality of matter is not interchangeable with spirit (Bennett, 2010), calls for an increased human spirituality (Cooper 2019) link closely with calls for non-human agency recognition: both allow movement beyond a life-matter binary to an almost childhood sense of the world in which animate beings both human and not reside (Bennett, 2010).
In relation with indigenous perspectives
MTH geomorphologies borrow substantially from, and exist in relation to, Indigenous theories, knowledge-claims, and emancipatory struggle. This offers an opportunity to bring geomorphology carefully and respectfully into closer conversation with Indigenous knowledges and aspirations, giving due consideration to recommendations and reservations highlighted by Tuck and Yang (2012). As Thomas (2015) has argued for freshwater, MTH approaches to geomorphology offer frameworks through which non-Indigenous people are able to articulate a sense of relationality and reciprocity with landscapes that is not always readily available, especially to western cultures.
Cohen et al. (2023) suggest that relating to landscapes as kin, rather than things, might lead to more reciprocal and nurturing relationships between human and non-human worlds. MTH kinship is not strictly genealogical, but a product of ongoing, embodied interactions (Ingold, 2000). Perhaps for the true meaning of kin to be realised, the vital materiality or agency of the non-human should again be appreciated. As Haraway proposes making kin is ‘making persons, not necessarily as individuals or humans’ (Haraway, 2015, p. 161). Non-humans can also be ‘kin’. A relational approach moves values associated with landscapes closer to those associated with human-human relationships (Chan et al., 2016), potentially enhancing the ethical considerations of the non-human (Anderson et al., 2019) and integrity of human – non-human relations (Milgin et al., 2020). A Māori worldview, for example, positions humans in a kin-based relationship with the universe and everything in it (Hikuroa, 2017). This offers a potential basis for new governance arrangements based on mutual responsibilities and recognition of Indigenous sovereignty (e.g., Ruru, 2018).
A MTH approach begins to see non-humans as active parts of natural systems – both humans and non-humans are part of the same whole – similar to many Indigenous theorisations of human-environment relations. Such understandings move beyond current assertions of dominant human-non-human relationships (Thomas, 2015). In contrast, as part of colonial ontologies, the world has been abstracted to component parts to enable categorisation and delineation with the only consideration of interrelatedness that of shared physical space (Cohen et al., 2023).
At the same time, given critiques suggesting that MTH scholarship has at times perpetuated a colonial tendency to either suppress or appropriate, it is important to actively consider what this relationship entails. As noted by Tuck and Yang (2012), decolonisation is not a metaphor, it requires material and epistemological change rather than the symbolic incorporation of Indigenous ideas into existing frameworks. Advocates of MTH geomorphologies can work closely with Indigenous peoples to consider the lived experience of landscape and support their ongoing decolonial work towards changing dominant environmental decision-making processes that are rooted in Eurocentric nature-society divides (Choi, 2016).
MTH geomorphologies as a geographical approach
A geographical approach to MTH geomorphologies is inherently place-based and considerate of site-specific goals and aspirations. This emphasis maintains and extends the empirical and process-based focus of geomorphology while opening space for alternative ontologies and situated knowledges.
MTH geomorphologies as a socially situated approach
MTH geomorphologies bring together the social and physical in a bid to not just work across disciplines but be inclusive of a wide spectrum of approaches. In itself, consideration of a socially situated approach is not new. Below, we outline several approaches that have attempted to move past the socio-natural divide with varying degrees of success. We then show how the reflexive position proposed for MTH geomorphologies goes further, aiming to create more just landscape science.
Ethnogeomorphology considers landscapes as mutually co-constituted and evolving cultural, ecological, and geomorphic entities, wherein the agency of the landscape itself is not merely viewed as a consequence of inevitable processes, but it is a result of decisions, choices, and interactions (Wilcock et al., 2013). As sentient entities, landscapes are created through cultural and social processes rather than just being a benign space upon which such interactions occur (Massey, 2005; Wilcock et al., 2013). As noted by Rhoads (2006), mutual co-constitution situates mechanistic materialism as only one way of knowing landscapes, opening space for understanding landscapes in multiple ways. This perspective engages multiple worldviews, including Indigenous and non-Indigenous ontologies. Simultaneously, it challenges the ideals of politically and value neutral science by attesting to landscapes agency and the historical power relations bound up in differing worldviews (Koppes, 2022; Lane et al., 2011; Wilcock et al., 2013). Wilkinson et al. (2020) propose that combining multiple understandings can achieve outcomes that cannot be done alone, simultaneously reframing research questions and methods in innovative and generative ways.
Entanglements between the social and human worlds have profound geo-ethical implications for the conduct of ‘public good’ science (Peppoloni and Capua, 2012). CPG attempts to foreground the power relations and socio-economic factors that influence the landscapes that researchers are part of (Dicks, 2021; Lave et al., 2014). Instead of utilising ethics to right past wrongs, the intrinsic vitality of nature itself may provide ethical constraints on the conduct of landscape research (Dicks, 2021). Geomorphology guided by geo-ethical principles can provide a new understanding of how this information is used (Bobrowsky et al., 2017). It moves geomorphology in directions which are respectful of the natural dynamics, intrinsic vitality, and ‘rights’ of the environment. Humans, have an ethical responsibility towards the environment not merely as the anthropocentric caretakers of inanimate matter, but as a significant system modifier in the whole of which everything is a part (Bobrowsky et al., 2017).
Socio-geomorphology also acknowledges that human systems and landscape systems interact and have influence over the other. However, MTH geomorphologies seek to further this concept. As with ethnogeomorphology, MTH geomorphologies observe biophysical and sociocultural landscapes not as separate, intermingling systems but as part of one whole. This challenges how landscapes are known, moving beyond objective categorisation within a purely biophysical framing (Jackson et al., 2022). Thus, MTH geomorphologies not only bridge the gap between the social and environmental sciences, as political ecology, socio-geomorphology, and others have already, but interweave the two (Figure 1). As part of this braiding, we interweave geo-ethics and CPG strands within an ethnogeomorphic lens (Koppes, 2022). Careful consideration is given not only to the processes the researcher engages in and knowledges used but the role of the researcher in cultivating these. MTH geomorphologies engage questions of knowledge and power at the level of the ontological assumptions that underpin scientific enquiry itself, rather than at the more primary level of social critique. While political ecology and CPG acknowledge the social nature of knowledge production, a Whiteheadian view of process allows MTH geomorphologies to see knowledge itself as a participatory event, and not something imposed on a passive world. MTH geomorphologies move beyond conceptualisations of historical and process geomorphology as competing methods with minor cross-over. While socio- and ethnogeomorphology recognise the interaction and overlap of humans and the environment, MTH geomorphologies are socially situated, geographical and holistic and it inherently includes geo-ethical considerations. Adapted from ‘Socio-hydrology and hydrosocial analysis: toward dialogues across disciplines’, by A. Wesselink, M. Kooy & J. Warner, 2017, Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Water, 4(2). (https://doi.org/10.1002/wat2.1196). Copyright 2017 by Wiley.
Case study – Approaches to geomorphology in ANZ
The physical and cultural landscape of ANZ presents an ideal case study to demonstrate the generative potential of MTH geomorphologies, building directly upon Māori socio-natural framings that conceptualise humans as inherent parts of living and emergent landscapes (Brierley et al., 2019; Hikuroa et al., 2021; Wilkinson et al., 2020). In this section we present a brief overview of the physical and cultural landscape of ANZ. We then situate emerging approaches to MTH geomorphologies in relation to the history of geomorphic inquiry in ANZ. We show how these various phases play out through an overview of changing approaches to landscape analyses in Waimatā catchment on the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island.
Physical and cultural landscape context
ANZ is predominantly characterised by short, steep, fast flowing rivers that drain relatively small catchments. Sitting astride a major tectonic boundary where the Australian and Pacific plates collide, tectonic processes shape distinctive landscapes on the North and South Islands. Steep terrain, weak lithologies (especially on the North Island), the imprint of glacial activity (primarily on the South Island), high annual rainfall and frequent disturbance events (including anthropogenic impacts) generate dynamic landscapes with exceedingly high rates of sediment flux per unit area (Hicks et al., 2011).
Historic approaches to geomorphology in ANZ have often been at odds with Māori conceptualisations of landscapes. In Māori creation stories the sky father (Rangi) and earth mother (Papa) were separated, and Rangi’s resultant tears formed the water bodies that bring life to the land (Salmond et al., 2019). In this way riverscapes are not seen as material but as ancestors that are more ancient and powerful than people with their own life force (Ruru, 2018; Salmond et al., 2019; Te Aho, 2019). River systems are conceptualised as indivisible entities that operate from the mountains to the sea (Brierley et al., 2023). Humans and non-humans are seen as inseparable with humans being part of rivers (Noo taatou te awa. Noo te awa taatou. We are the river. The river is us; Robert Mahuta 1975, in Waikato River Act 2010). The health and well-being of each is therefore inextricably intertwined (Brierley et al., 2023).
Overview of phases of geomorphic inquiry in Aotearoa New Zealand.
A history of geomorphology in ANZ
Despite a long history of Māori engagement with rock such as matā (obsidian) and pounamu, and scattered observations made by European naturalists and surveyors, geology did not find prominence in ANZ until gold was found in the Coromandel in 1852 (Nathan, 2006, 2014). Typical of other parts of the world, geological underpinnings of landscape inquiry focussed on descriptive analyses with a resource focus (top-left box on Figure 2). As a consequence of these material realities, geology was once of the first subjects to be taught in New Zealand universities (Nathan, 2006). Early investigations concentrated heavily on Davisian-type, explanatory, historical science (see, Brockie, 1993; Davis, 1909), which considered process as a means to develop varied, observable forms. The grandfather of geomorphology in ANZ, Sir Charles Cotton, was an ardent proponent of Davis’ cycle of erosion, arguing that tectonic processes rejuvenated and disrupted the cycle (Cotton, 1922; Crozier and Priestley, 2011). Changing practices in the conduct of geomorphic enquiry in ANZ. Questions asked, methods used, analytical procedures applied, and the ways insights are used have changed markedly over time. Boxes indicate dominant emphases rather than discrete categories. Historical geomorphology provides long-term perspectives that inform MTH’s temporal depth, while process geomorphology contributes precise measurement and modelling techniques. Socio- and ethnogeomorphology highlight social and cultural dimensions of landscape, which MTH integrates but extends to include the agency of non-human materials. Collectively, MTH geomorphologies synthesise multiple strands, retaining useful insights while reorienting the discipline toward relational and multi-knowledge approaches to landscape change.
The passing of the Soil Conservation and Rivers Control Act in 1941 attests to widespread social and institutional recognition of profound alteration to the colonial landscapes of ANZ as a result of land clearance and other anthropogenic impacts. Moves to use land to mitigate soil erosion, conserve soil and control flooding brought concerns for landscape processes to the forefront of society (though specific disciplinary labels such as applied geomorphology and engineering geology were not used at that time). Particular focus was placed upon quantification of rates of geomorphic activity – hillslope erosion, sedimentation rates, etc. The availability of aerial photographs, remote sensing applications, field measurement techniques, and enhanced dating (chronology) controls supported process quantification (Crozier and Priestley, 2011) (e.g., top-centre Figure 2).
Central government policy majorly increased university funding during the late 1950s. The passing of the Water and Soil Conservation Act (1967), later superseded by the Resource Management Act (1991), mirrored the global sustainability turn. Crown Research Institutes (CRIs) (initially government-funded research groups) were established, including the national Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), Landcare (Manaaki Whenua) and Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences (GNS). Hydrological and geomorphological science increasingly supplemented engineering applications in catchment management programmes. Rapid adoption of remote sensing, digital mapping, and modelling technologies underpinned major national-scale initiatives such as the Land Environments of New Zealand (LENZ) (Leathwick et al., 2003), the River Environment Classification (Snelder et al., 2004), and foundational work on sediment flux estimation (Hicks et al., 2011). More recently, the RMA has been repealed and replaced with two new bills: the Planning Bill and the Natural Environment Bill. With the intent of becoming law in 2026 and being implanted in 2029, the bills aim to streamline the consenting process (Expert Advisory Group on Resource Management Reform, 2025). As part of the reforms CRIs have been combined and restructured to create four Public Research Organisations (PROs), hoping to increase collaboration and deliver greater economic and social outcomes (Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment, 2025). Although there is concern that such changes favour economic priorities over the environment, these intersections of scientific, policy, and societal priorities to co-produce knowledge about landscape processes and management are examples of socio-geomorphology (box on Figure 2).
Alongside these shifts in geomorphic practice, the Treaty of Waitangi (1840) Tribunal process established in 1975 sought to address past breaches of the Treaty through agreements between the Crown and specific Māori Iwi (tribes). A profusion of revitalised understandings and relationships to land saw increased recognition of Māori knowledge and the benefits of ‘mixed-method’ research (Wilkinson et al., 2020). Essentially, this exemplifies ethnogeomorphic research (middle box on Figure 2). All too often, however, tick-box exercises merely sought to incorporate Māori knowledge within Western scientific frameworks (Figure 1).
In a critique of approaches to ‘merge’ or ‘integrate’ western science and matauranga Māori, a cultural anthropology lens advocated by Salmond (2014) sought to find what it might mean for a river to have its own rights to its own life. Such a framing presents the contextual underpinning of MTH geomorphologies (Figure 2). Moves to ‘Let the River Speak’ were applied to the Waimatā Catchment located in the Gisborne Region of New Zealand’s North Island (Salmond, 2017; Salmond et al., 2019). Subject to large scale deforestation in its upper reaches following European settlement and current mismanaged forestry practices, the Waimatā River experiences severe erosion and major floods (Figure 3; Salmond et al., 2019). In geomorphic terms, the river acts like a flume, rapidly flushing sediment down its length (Fuller et al., 2023). Research into ecological history, the impact of poor land use practices overtime and recreational activities, among many considerations, involved scientific analyses as well as interviews with local landowners, farmers, iwi members, foresters, and researchers (Salmond et al., 2019). Mismanaged slash from forestry practices is readily conveyed from steep, unstable hillslopes to valley floors (Figure 3(a); Thomas et al., 2025). Flume-like sections of the channel (Figure 3(b)), constrained by a series of degradational terraces (Litchfield and Berryman, 2005), rapidly transport slash and large volumes of fine-grained sediment downstream (Fuller et al., 2023; Harvey et al., 2021). Deposition in shallower, lower velocity sections alters downstream channel morphology (Figure 3(c)), impacting on hydraulic units of pool-riffle sequences (Shields and Smith, 1991). Large disturbance events accentuate this morphological transformation, damaging property and infrastructure on floodplains and terraces (Figure 3(d)). The operation of these processes within the Waimatā catchment prompts reflections of the agency of non-human materials, their ability to ‘do work’, and produce varied and potentially spatially extensive relational effects. (a) Felling of pine plantations mobilises hillslope materials, which the river subsequently entrains; a connected catchment from the mountains to the sea. (b) Evidence of sediment and slash in flume-like sections illustrate how flow, gravity, wood, and morphology work together reorganise material and co-produce landscapes. (c) Slash influencing geomorphology; although anthropogenic in origin, slash itself becomes an active geomorphic participant once entrained. (d) Following a large disturbance event the river actively reworks and redistributes materials across the channel and floodplain, demonstrating its ongoing capacity to adjust beyond its banks.
How MTH geomorphologies might be conducted in the Waimatā.
Discussion – MTH geomorphologies as a way forward
‘Messy’ and complex landscapes, like that of the Waimatā shown above, are resistant to overly simplistic, quantitative applications of deterministic scientific principles. Such framings fail to capture outcomes of non-linear process interactions in contingent and emergent landscapes, where outcomes are greater than the sum of their parts (Rhoads, 2006). MTH geomorphologies provide a method that is not entirely scientific or is ‘differently scientific’ (Thomas et al., 2025), encompassing practices that enable closer consultation with the non-human (Bennett, 2010). In this discussion section we discuss how such a reframing could be facilitated, and associated implications for the conduct of MTH geomorphologies.
Facilitating MTH geomorphologies
MTH geomorphologies do not seek to disregard past practices. Rather, active learning principles build respectfully on what has gone before. During its history geomorphology has swung from focusing on product (broad-scale descriptions of landscape form) to process (often at micro-scale using analytical and computational techniques). Rhoads (2006) notes that as a result of the narrow conception of what process is, process geomorphology has followed form-focused geomorphology in becoming similarly constrained by mechanistic materialism (Figure 2). Treating landscapes as predictable entities that are reducible to universal laws fails to encompass multiple meanings and interpretations of landscapes. A shift in thinking towards process philosophy is required to facilitate a turn to MTH geomorphologies. Process philosophy combines product and process-based approaches while considering the dynamic nature of landscapes (Rhoads, 2006). Qualitative methods are required to accompany quantitative analyses, disassembling mind-nature or subject-object dualisms (Rhoads, 2006). This simultaneously challenges notions of scientific objectivity as it acknowledges the entanglement of the researcher within the system as research is conducted from the perspective of the landscape itself. Recontextualising and reprocessing readily available resources and materials provide a generative platform to facilitate MTH geomorphologies.
Recognising inherent merits of CPG, socio-geomorphology and ethnogeomorphology, MTH geomorphologies can capture understandings in ways that build on related but different aspects of human and non-human relationships – the social/political and the cultural, respectively (Figure 2). A multitude of ‘MTH’ methods (Lorimer and Hodgetts, 2024) can support MTH geomorphologies in its quest to increase emphasis on the agency of non-humans, thereby creating holistic procedures to conduct landscape science based on process philosophy (Rhoads, 2006).
Conducting MTH geomorphologies
Conducting MTH geomorphologies.
Attending to its geographical nature, stories encompass both the lived histories and experiences of a landscape and its evolutionary history, from the perspective of the system itself, in any suitable medium (Thomas et al., in press). Stories can act as a convergent space to understand the dynamic processes that make up landscapes. They allow for the diversity of landscapes to be respected and ‘worked with’ in a way unique to its characteristics – allowing it to speak for itself.
Approaches like ‘walking with’ (Sundberg, 2014) or conversations along river banks (Brierley et al., 2025a) provide insights into familiar relations that aid the conduct of MTH geomorphologies. Such socially situated encounters that are attuned to given moments in space and time recognise implicitly that research does not occur in a vacuum. Affectual relationships with the landscape of study help to appreciate its intricacies (Haraway, 2008), recognising that notional objectivity and a detached neutrality of ‘formal’ science inhibit affective relationships, removing feeling from thought, thereby limiting communication with the land (Poelina et al., 2020). Instead, knowledge generation ‘in-place’ makes it locally grounded and not above scrutiny from ‘outside’ sources (Kohler, 2002; Lorimer and Hodgetts, 2024; Van Dooren et al., 2016). This approach embraces more-than-human ideals in conducting research from the ‘mountains to the sea’. Place-based knowledges of process reflect upon and represent the embedded vitality of landscapes beyond that of static mechanistic materialism. Such understandings and the outcomes they engender are more complete, resilient, and equitable (Koppes, 2022; Wilkinson et al., 2020), allowing a new geo-ethics to emerge in which the non-human informs practice rather than being practiced upon (Dicks, 2021). Conducted effectively, actionable knowledge is usable for those who need it (Brierley et al., 2025b). Pluralist and holistic approaches can help to confront power inequalities by respectfully considering multiple worldviews in the conduct and communication of MTH geomorphologies.
We do note that geomorphologists working in siloes will not be able to adequately address this quest for holism. We need to come together with colleagues (e.g., from engineering, ecological and cultural studies backgrounds) forming communities of river practitioners (CoRPs) (Brierley et al., 2025a) in a transdisciplinary effort to gaze through a MTH lens.
Aspirations for MTH geomorphologies
As with Whitehead’s speculative philosophy, our approach also rests within the speculative. It aims to produce improved metaphysical frameworks that can develop our understandings of the world (Roberts, 2024). Weaving together ideas of sentience and impermanence allows for a more ethical consideration of landscapes. MTH approaches to geomorphic inquiry reveal and express the intrinsic worth of landscapes – their own vitality and rights. MTH geomorphologies acknowledge landscapes as process amalgamations (Rhoads, 2006) and vibrant matter (Bennett, 2010), embracing perceptions of landscapes not as ‘things in space’ but as ‘processes through time’ (Goodwin, 1999). Understanding this trajectorial aspect of landscapes provides the basis for thinking proactively about future landscapes and simultaneously considering intergenerational equity. Geo-ethical deliberations are key underpinnings of MTH geomorphologies, treating nature as more than a resource (it has vitality) by emphasising relational responsibility and epistemic humility (use of multiple knowledges) (Bobrowsky et al., 2017). Respect for diversity (place-based values) and ‘descientisation’ of practice (Sharp et al., 2022) at the heart of MTH geomorphologies encompass a move beyond ‘who speaks for nature’ to allowing nature to speak for itself through more attentive practices that listen and understand landscapes. Such practices are embodied in non-traditional ways through art-science collaborations such as ecopoetics (Thomas et al., in press) and physical art pieces (e.g., Be the Taniwha at Tairawhiti Museum 2021–2022; Hikuroa et al., 2025). In these multi-sensory relations, MTH geomorphologies incorporate the reading of landscapes in a scientific sense (i.e., memory and form) and listening to landscapes in a cultural sense (i.e., relationships they have held with people over multiple time scales).
Conclusion
We propose MTH geomorphologies as a plural approach to undertake socially situated, geographical and holistic landscape science, conceived as a new conceptual orientation rather than a discrete and prescriptive method. MTH geomorphologies build upon Whiteheadian (1920, 1925) conceptualisations of process alongside consideration of landscapes as vibrant matter (Bennett, 2010), reenchanting materiality as forms of co-existent and co-mingling process. MTH geomorphologies foreground the relational constitution of landscape, where humans and non-humans participate within, rather than stand apart from, material transformation. They are explicitly attentive to the influence of the non-human, not as possessors of intrinsic spirit or thought, but as process amalgamations whose interactions shape geomorphic systems. In doing so, MTH geomorphologies reaffirm geography’s concern for process, place, and power while inviting plural enactments attentive to context and ethical responsibility. A pluralistic or ‘multiple geomorphologies’ lens enables MTH geomorphologies to envisage hopeful prospects that allow nature to speak for itself, giving a coherent voice to what are often referred to as ‘messy’ landscapes. One might even ask whether such an approach could be called more-than-physical geomorphology – an olive branch across the enduring human–physical geography divide that this paper seeks to minimise.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge the thoughtful and constructive feedback provided by the reviewers, which significantly improved the clarity and development of this manuscript. They also thank colleagues and collaborators for valuable discussions that helped shape the ideas presented here. This research was supported by the George Mason Centre for the Natural Environment. The work also relates to and was influenced by the Let the River Speak (LTRS) project and its researchers.
Ethical consideration
There are no human participants in this article and informed consent is not required.
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the George Mason Centre for the Natural Environment as part of a PhD scholarship [grant number 4122-78048].
Declaration of conflicting interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Data Availability Statement
Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.