Transcorporeal tourism: Whales, fetuses, and the rupturing and reinscribing of cultural constraints (original) (raw)
Related papers
Intercorporeality: An Invitation to Being in the Human-Body–Nature Relationship
Journal of Conscious Evolution, 2013
Human-mediated climate change and environmental degradation are real. Likewise, human health issues associated with modernity are becoming increasingly concerning. This paper pre- supposes the inter-relationship between these two bourgeoning phenomena, and draws upon recent scholarship in the field of Religion and Ecology, and particularly the work of Thomas Berry (2006, 1999), as a means to critically analyze Judeo-Christian theosophy, an encoded meaning animus by which Westerners (largely), and Americans primarily, enact denial of the fullest expression of life – among one another and within the context of the natural world. I offer two broadly generalized and contrasting religious narratives, which together illumine widely variable cultural cosmologies. The first narrative is derived from indigenous peoples of the Amazon, as described by Wade Davis (2009). The second narrative emerges from the Judeo- Christian Biblical creation stories in Genesis Chapters One and Two, as described by Leon Kass (2003). Together, these narratives form a basis for developing understanding of encoded human behavior toward the human body, human Being, and the nature-body. My thesis is that Western Judeo-Christian theosophy as it has been interpreted and expressed societally, serves, even in a largely secularlized context, as the encoded meaning animus, which drives human behavior toward denial of the fullest expression of life. It is this theosophy that is herein scrutinized, which provides the context to consider other ways of Being. When juxtaposed with animist cosmogony, the Judeo-Christian cosmological denial of life becomes immediately apparent. Is there, however, a pre-immanent cosmology, one that is proto-logical, indeed, proto-symbolical? Importantly, the paper invites a response to these human and environmental issues by considering an enactive framework of embodied intersubjectivity – intercorporeality – as it relates to the embodied Being-in-the-world as well as Beingness embodied, embedded, extended and enacted (Rowlands, 2010) intercorporeally. Drawing largely on Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Husserl by way of David Michael Levin (1985) and J. W. Hayward, I propose here, a response that is less methodological than it is an examination of and invitation to experiential phenomenology and intersubjectivity – intercorporeality – to address human-nature well-being.
Embracing water, healing pine: touch-walking and transcorporeal worldings
The Senses and Society, 2023
This article considers touch as an embodied worlding practice in the context of humans intentionally seeking tactile trans-species contact. In particular, it examines three co-researchers’ tactile relations with tree(s) and water which were explored by “touch- walking,” an immersive method developed for this study. The method opened possibilities for examining transcorporeal sensory matterings and affective flows between the researcher’s body, co- researchers’ bodies and more-than-human bodies. This experimental micro-research brings knowledge about how people form dee-ply meaningful relationships with natural bodies, making worlds by cherishing tactile contact with them. Theoretically, we “posthumanize” touch by bringing insights from cultural touch and skin studies, feminist new materialisms and affect theory. We propose that our co-researchers’ specific companionships entail multilayered, more-than-human intimacies. The co-becomings fostered by tactile and sensual more-than-human intimacies are affective, material, and psychic. The study inspired us to propose that rethinking ways of engaging with matter through touch may advance alter-native environmental ethics and necessitates the development of further multisensory research methodologies.
Introduction to Nonhuman Encounters: Animals, Objects, Affects, and the Place of Practice
2018
This essay is the introduction to the panel “Nonhuman Encounters: Animals, Objects, Affects, and the Place of Practice” featuring papers by Carla Freccero, Katie Gentile, Ann Pellegrini, Nathan Snaza, Donovan Schaefer, Nuar Alsadir, Francisco Gonzalez, Julietta Singh, Eleonora Fabião, Michelle Stephens, and Patricia Clough. Each essay responds to the question of these encounters in places of practice, including the clinical.
HEALM 2019, 2019
This paper attempts to analyze Sadanand Deshmukhs’s Marathi novel Baromaas: Twelve Enduring Months, translated by Dr. Vilas Salunke into English, using the framework of trans-corporeality and investigate how the material environment affects human bodies, the knowledge and the ethical systems, and the social practices and politics. Baromaas is a Sahitya Akademi Award winning novel of 2004 and is critically acclaimed for its realistic depiction of the current condition of Indian farming. To say that Baromaas depicts the socio-economic and psychological trials and tribulations of the farming community alone would be incomplete as it would disregard the non-human nature which is a major actant or actor in the novel and thus would be inadequate to understand the real nature of environmental issues like climate change, droughts, chemical imbalance of the soil, infertility, and genetic modification of seeds touched upon by the author. It would also be inadequate to determine the ethical responsibility for these human induced environmental harms. The novel then should be seen from the material-social-discursive perspective with a focus on trans-corporeal inter-actions or processes. When we focus on the biological or physiological responses of the human body to its environment, they “spark lines of inquiry, paths of struggle and even bodies of literature.” [1]. In a world of trans-corporeal bodies which are networked, interfacing and interacting, the human and more-than-human become co-constituted and permeable. Trans-corporeality, thus, can offer a theoretical framework to analyze the complex environmental issues which are very much real and demand new epistemologies to deal with the “entangled territories of material and discursive, natural and cultural, biological and textual.” [1] Key words Baromaas, material ecocriticism, transcorporeality, networked bodies, ethics, epistemology, discursive, seed freedom, risk society, collaborations.
Embodied Ecologies, an intimate Relationship with the Psyche Quadrant (Volume 52, No 1) Spring 2023
Quadrant, 2023
Ecologies are explored by a woman, artist and transpersonal psychologist as she narrates her intimate relationship with the psyche as an internal landscape, while also reflecting on the environments in which she lives. Ecologies include her relationship with the land surrounding her rural home and studio on the southern coast of Australia and some of its inhabitants. The central desert of Australia features as soul-scape of the artist and creative artworks form part of the language for this reflection. Human relationships, dreams, insights, “conversations” with both the ordinary and extra-ordinary, internal and external landscapes, are navigated within a transpersonal, creative and self-reflexive framework, including the author’s autoethnographic reflections. The discussion references Jungian and Buddhist theory and reflects upon the importance of a personal, emergent, and creative voice in contributing to understanding the ecology of the human psyche as well as the potential for transforming humanity’s relationship with the planet and its inhabitants.
2024
The nutria (Myocastor coypus) and the blue crab (Callictenes sapidus and Portunus segnis) are indeed two distinct animals: a rodent mammal and a decapod crustacean. While they belong to different species, they share a common classification in specific global contexts: invasive alien species, introduced into environments different from their native habitats, and causing damage to the new territories. These two animals have been the focal points of my ethnographic research. The first study, conducted in Italy from 2020 to 2022, gathered narratives from individuals who chose to adopt (illegally) the Myocastor coypus (nutria) as a domestic pet: originating from South America, this rodent was imported into the Italian peninsula for fur production, and subsequently the decrease of market production, (in)voluntary releases into the territory resulted in its problematic presence. The stories shared by individuals who chose to adopt nutrias as domestic pets provide insights into the diverse motivations and perceptions surrounding these rodents. Beyond mere companionship, the illegal adoption of nutrias reflects a complex negotiation of human desires, empathy, and a changing environmental landscape. The ongoing second research initiative focusing on the invasion of the blue crab along the Tunisian coast provides a captivating glimpse into the adaptive strategies and shifting perceptions of coastal communities. Termed "Daesh" (Islamic State) by local fishing communities, the blue crab has undergone a remarkable transformation in both the eyes of the community and the lens of local media. What was initially perceived as a natural disaster has evolved into a significant source of wealth (only for someone), presenting a complex narrative of resilience and symbiosis between humans and an invasive species. The proposal contemplates the adaptive strategies of human beings in the era of bio-globalization and Anthropocene. In addition to symbolizing purification in a structuralist perspective that challenges the stagnant dichotomies of modern Western thought (native/alien, domestic/wild), invasive alien species offer a glimpse into contemporary biological reality: what kind of nature is accepted? How is change domesticated? What world awaits us? The presentation provides thoughtful reflections derived from two contemporary ethnographies concerning the affective, moral, and ethical implications of eradication: exploitation, capitalization, and nostalgia in the biological invasion.