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Escaping the Modern Predicament: Nature as Refuge and Community in Contemporary Health Practices in Wales, Sweden, and Finland
Swansea University, Swansea, UK.
Södertörn University, School of Historical and Contemporary Studies, The Study of Religions.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-2335-0471
2022 (English)In: Relating with More-than-Humans: Interbeing Rituality in a Living World / [ed] Chamel, Jean; Dansac, Yael, Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022, p. 165-189Chapter in book (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

This chapter engages with the burgeoning international phenomenon of therapeutic nature practices, such as ecotherapy, forest bathing, and forest therapy. This is informed by the author’s ethnographic research in European geographical and cultural contexts with much in common but also notable differences: Wales, Sweden, and Finland. In all of these fieldwork contexts the idea that ‘natural’ spaces were somewhere one could ‘get away’ to as an ‘escape’, as something ‘set apart’ or seen as ‘other’, was key to the therapeutic framing of the activities. This was both an escape from perceived pathological effects of society and an escape to a complex community of life represented by nature. Therefore in these fields nature is a community, but one without social roles and stratification, a communitas, as described by Victor Turner. In Turner’s understanding, communitas arises in a liminal state, an in-between state where the social system is dissolved within a ritual framework, enabling participants to transform, reconstitute themselves, and re-enter society in a new role. A lack of social roles and demands is still an absence, of course. However, in many practitioners’ accounts it is also clear that positive characteristics are attributed to earth beings. The presence of life and living beings is experienced as revitalising. A transformation can be argued to take place, but this is primarily within the individual, rather than outer cultural or societal change. Also of note was a mostly positive view of nature, with little consideration of the potential for threat or danger. The chapter concludes with a reflection on how therapeutic nature practices both reflect and resist contemporary Western culture.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022. p. 165-189
Series
Palgrave Studies in Anthropology of Sustainability
National Category
Religious Studies
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-52399DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-10294-3_8ISBN: 978-3-031-10293-6 (print)ISBN: 978-3-031-10294-3 (electronic)OAI: oai:DiVA.org:sh-52399DiVA, id: diva2:1800453
Available from: 2023-09-26 Created: 2023-09-26 Last updated: 2023-09-26Bibliographically approved

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Ohlsson, Henrik

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CiteExportLink to record
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Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • harvard-anglia-ruskin-university
  • apa-old-doi-prefix.csl
  • sodertorns-hogskola-harvard.csl
  • sodertorns-hogskola-oxford.csl
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
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