A CRITICAL ECOSOMATICS: Cultivating Awareness and Imagination

Publication Date

1-1-2024

Document Type

Contribution to a Book

Publication Title

Geographies of Us: Ecosomatic Essays and Practice Pages

DOI

10.4324/9781003390985-3

First Page

17

Last Page

35

Abstract

In this essay, Shannon Rose Riley sketches a critical ecosomatics that comprises philosophies, critical-theoretical positions, methods, practices, and worldviews which rethink the notion of a discrete human subject and instead locate it as constituted within and through various kinds of relations and entanglements. It is indebted to theories and practices in somatic movement but especially to phenomenology and eco-phenomenology, quantum field theory, the material feminisms of Bennett and others, and to various Indigenous knowledges. All of these challenge, in one way or another, Cartesian dualisms in regard to overly simplistic human-animal-plant-matter divides and notions of a self-possessed human subject with claims to superiority and a singular agency. In ecosomatics, we cultivate awareness of entanglement and intra-connection. The chapter outlines several key areas to be attended to in a critical ecosomatic approach, including increased awareness of the land one occupies and reflection on our part in the Anthropocene. All of this is to locate ourselves historically, conceptually, ethically-and ecosomatically.

Department

Humanities

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