SUMMARY FOR ARTICLE

Imaginative engagement as a mode of citizen participation-the use of arts-based methods to involve people actively in shared learning experiences-holds promise as a means to increase awareness and understanding, and to build capacity, for sustainable use and management of rivers. Broadly we were interested in finding out whether imaginative engagement would help move beyond participation to social learning and change as a way of sharing and raising awareness knowledge and skills in relation to conceptually complex issues which need to be vividly imagined for breakthroughs to occur. Project team and recruitment of participants Our research team comprised a creative writing expert two social researchers with experience in participatory processes and project evaluation a landscape planner and an environmental scientist. Evaluating the writing workshops We monitored and evaluated the project through a process we termed embedded evaluation to understand how participants engaged with the process and changed through and beyond the course of the workshops. It also seemed that participants with scientific and non-scientific backgrounds enriched their understanding of catchmentthe former gaining a sense of the memories and journeys that were caught up in the rivers compass and the latter developing a stronger appreciation of the rivers physical geography and ecology.