On Care, Carnality, and the Socio-Ecological Problems of (Dis)Embodied Communities

• In Event: Redefining Care in a Global Pandemic: Problematizing Relational Models in Socio-Ecological Systems

Abstract

Purpose: The media upholds that many of us are “emerging” from the COVID-19 pandemic. We know this is not the case globally, as massive inequalities around vaccination efforts and access to medical care continue to drive alarming case numbers in many majority countries, especially those in the Global South. At the same time, we are perhaps more aware than ever of the accelerating impacts of climate change and the need for drastic measures to prevent further temperature increase. As environmental educators and researchers reflect on paths forward, we need to identify new areas of theoretical and practical inspiration while revisiting existing and long-held ideas as well. This poster presentation highlights work centered around two theoretical constructs—socioecological models of care and carnal hermeneutics—to consider questions of shared responsibility and mutual flourishing from an educational point of view. How do we teach and learn in a post-pandemic world that is heating up? What notions of community do we wish to maintain, (re)build, or restore and how do we enact such communities?
Theoretical Framework: Carnal hermeneutics (Kearney & Treanor, 2015) in particular examines the body as the primary site of interpretation—of other bodies, of environments, of language, of the sacred/sublime. It has not often been taken up as a starting point for analysis in EE, with one exception (Kopnina, Sitka-Sage, Blenkinsop, and Piersol, 2019). However, there are social and ecological applications worth considering in the field alongside more popular hermeneutic approaches (see Wood, 2015; Toadvine, 2015). Likewise, a hermeneutics of the body has significant potential for more thoroughly articulating what Maria Puig de la Bellacasa (2017) refers to as “matters of care,” that are often ambivalent but remain central to our socio-political lives within more-than-human worlds.
Methods & Data: This poster presentation blends theoretical exploration from a hermeneutic standpoint with discourse analysis (media, online curriculum, popular press discussions of education, etc.) and autobiographical reflections. The perspective and arguments addressed here further discourses concerning care, ethics, and the more-than-human world and are in conversation with recent publications in the field of EE (Taylor & Pacini-Ketchabaw, 2015; Pacini-Ketchabaw & Nxumalo, 2016; Lloro-Bidart, 2017).
Results & Significance: de la Bellacasa’s exploration of care considers how to articulate the embeddedness of care within a relational ontology but also, to account for our actions, have various implications for socioecological living. Carnal hermeneutics and socioecological care provide points of deep reflection on our praxis. In learning how to better care for ourselves, each other, and the planet, what are we asking of and doing with our bodies? Environmental educators have used a mixture of virtual strategies during the pandemic. Even as some communities “emerge” from the crises associated with the pandemic and return to more in-person opportunities, what could the role of such (dis)embodied practices offer us? If we maintain some semblance of a virtual orientation to our practices and building of communities, how do we address the problems of embodied knowing, embodied interaction, and embodied learning that arise?

Author

• Joshua James Russell, Canisius College