New Academic Article by Dr. Francesca Howell, in the Journal of Ecopsychology
Coping with Climate Anxiety: Animism, Materiality and Community in Heterotopic Time
ABSTRACT
This study proposes methods and praxes to aid in coping with the increasing climate anxiety and the notable“loneliness epidemic” of our era. It examines questions of how these conditions could be mitigated, or even begin to heal, should we accept that nature and place are part of our “other-than-human” community. The article interrogates questions of how postmodern society could adapt its gaze and worldview through an enhanced relationality, with an animistic ethos and lifestyle, recognizing spirit and intelligence in the world around us. Creating an embodied, somatic awareness of the relational world extends our community, potentially including nature, aiding us to experience bonds often lost in this era of solastalgia. The study explores whether we may find coping methods and renewed resilience through transporting experiences of Foucauldian“heterotopias”, liminal spaces outside of mundane time and place such as festivals, rituals, feasting, and traditional lifeways. The paper offers ethnographic examples and case studies, as well as an interdisciplinary ecopsychological lens, whose sources include environmental studies, anthropology, ritual studies, and religious studies, among other fields.
