Earthing bodies in place : workshopping an embodied awareness practice towards fostering ecological consciousness

Abstract

As diverse implications of the climate crisis become increasingly apparent, the Environmental Humanities (EH) have responded to the need for a transformation of conventional paradigms, attempting to dislodge anthropocentric assumptions by re-positioning humans as just one part of a complex, interdependent Earth system, an ethico-onto-epistemological concern. Earthing Bodies in Place (EBP) is a transdisciplinary research project that contributes to this field of inquiry through an exploration of whether a simple embodied awareness practice can foster a deeper sense of awareness for participants of the subtle workings of their own body and an increased sense of their relationship with place, and the more-than-human. And, if it does, what the implications are, then, for an expanded ecological consciousness amongst participants and the choices they make in how they live on Earth. The EBP Project workshopped a body awareness practice developed by the researcher, informed by her background in dance, experiential education, and social ecology. Participants spent one day learning and doing the practice and extending their engagement with it through individual creative responses, group reflection and dialogue. After the workshop, the participants did the practice on their own for four weeks before reuniting for a final focus group. Data generated by this mixed methods research was organised thematically and a Baradian diffractive analysis was utilised to grapple with divergent patterns of relational dynamics at play. The thesis argues that simple embodied awareness can serve as a practice of attentiveness for humans to their embeddedness with all sorts of more-than-human, including various experiences of awkwardness in such relationships.

Date of Award	2022
Original language	English