Transcript Developing a Compassionate Sense of Place: Environmental and Social Conscientization In

Developing a Compassionate Sense of Place:
Environmental and Social Conscientization In
Environmental Organizations
Randolph Haluza- DeLay
Doctoral Dissertation
Socio-cultural contexts of Education
Joint Ph.D. in Education
University of Western Ontario
January, 29, 2007
Full presentation available as download:
http://csopconsulting.tripod.com/dd
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Compassionate sense of place
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Project
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change I, II, III
Arctic Climate Impact Assessment
Ecological Footprint of Cnd Cities
PUBLIC AWARENESS, BUT LITTLE CHANGE (or at
least, not enough)
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Compassionate sense of place
LITTLE CHANGE (or at least, not enough)







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More Environmental Ed?
Governmental regulation?
Social Mvmts–new frames/cognitive praxis?
 (see “The Death of Environmentalism”)
Sociologically robust
Not cognitive ONLY
Practical (that is, everyday lived practice)
Imaginative/evocative (ergo, replace the
“modern social imaginary” – C. Taylor (2004)
Compassionate sense of place
Our analyses may be right as rain but they have little
or no ability to move people about such a deeply
resonant array of experience as are implied in [for
example] ‘the relation to nature.’
- Neil Smith (1998)
Nature at the millennium: Production and reenchantment (p. 280)
The goal: “Living environmentally without
trying”
- Michael Bell (2004)
Introduction to Environmental Sociology
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Compassionate sense of place
Today’s talk
Getting to the goal of “Living environmentally
without trying”
1)
Via “a compassionate sense of place” (an
environmental “logic” of practice)
2)
Investigate “Caring for Place” (with attention
to sociological theory)
3)
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Provide suggestions for social movement
organizations as educative.
Compassionate sense of place
A Compassionate Sense of
Place
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
a place-conscious ethos of
caring.

a field of care involving the
intersection of selfawareness and practical
attentiveness to the
flourishing of socioecological relations.
Compassionate sense of place
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Compassionate sense of place
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Compassionate sense of place
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Compassionate sense of place
Developing a Compassionate Sense of
Place: Environmental and Social Conscientization In
Environmental Organizations

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Dissertation: “Integrated Article” format
 (3 independent articles,
 a literature review, introduction, expanded
methods & conclusion)

Involved field research in Thunder Bay, Ontario

Draws heavily on the sociological tools of Pierre
Bourdieu and his “theory of practice”.
 For example, the conceptualisation of
“habitus” helps explain why socio-ecological
change has been so difficult to generate
ALTHOUGH we have heard so much about the
decline in environmental conditions.
Compassionate sense of place
Integrated article format:



Education, social movements and environmental
learning
Article1: The practice of environmentalism: Creating
ecological habitus

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
Interlude: Ethnography as method
Article2: Habitus and cognitive praxis among
environmentalists
Article3: Caring for place? Possibilities for a
compassionate sense of place among
environmentalists

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Introduction: Placing the Research
Caught not taught: Growing a compassionate sense of
place...
Compassionate sense of place
Bourdieusian Concepts

Bourdieu is “good to think with”

Bourdieu’s theory of practice, includes




Field
Habitus
Logic of Practice (sens pratique)
Forms of capital; symbolic power/violence
The theory of action that I propose (with the notion of habitus)
amounts to saying that most human actions have as a basis
something quite different from intention, that is, acquired
dispositions which make it so that an action can and should be
interpreted as oriented toward one objective or another without
anyone being able to claim that that objective was a conscious
design
(Bourdieu, 1998, p. 97-98).
People do not “think” their lives: they live them.
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Compassionate sense of place
The Practice of Environmentalism….



EE research - knowledge and behaviour not well
linked.
Cognition only small part of environmental practice.
Nevertheless, EE & “ee” are highly rational &
information driven.
OVEREMPHASIS on the cognitive aspects of
behaviour.
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Compassionate sense of place
The Practice of Environmentalism….
I don’t know what that [change] is. It’s not like people
don’t have the information…. Anything we’re doing or
not doing is not because of a lack of information. So
what is it? What’s the key here?
(Interview, Chrissy)
I think there’s a social aspect to all this that I just can’t
define. In some ways it's advancing because it is
socially acceptable to recycle or naturalize your
lawn... [but] I think the social aspect has a hold that's
larger than we give it [credit].
(Interview, Brian)
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Compassionate sense of place
Methods – investigating practice

Analytic Ethnography (Lofland; 1996; Snow,
Morrill Anderson, 2000)
Theory-driven, NOT “grounded theory”, nor “thick
description.”
 Enables sustained theorizing across cases



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Refinement of “a compassionate sense of
place”
Extension of habitus  “ecological habitus
Compassionate sense of place
Methods

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Placing the Field  Thunder Bay
 The North, far removed from the South
 Specific issues; local environmentalism
Compassionate sense of place
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Compassionate sense of place
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Compassionate sense of place
Methods

Placing the Field  Thunder Bay
 The North, far removed from the South
 Specific issues; local environmentalism

Involved for 3 ½ yrs.
Deliberate fieldwork from May -November of my last
year.
Just under 20 organizations (most ad hoc)
Culminated in 24 formal interviews with 27
“environmentally active” people.

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Compassionate sense of place
Caring for place?
Possibilities for a compassionate sense
of place among environmentalists
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Extensive literature on “place”
Diverse literature on “caring”, “love”, “ethic of
care”

Lots of theoretical & ecophilosophical writing
(especially, ecofeminism)

How does it work in practice?
 Caring for Place?
Compassionate sense of place
Caring for place?

The assumption:
“…grounded in and supports the
development of a love for one´s place.”
- Principles of Successful PlaceBased Education
http://www.promiseofplace.org/how_pb
e_works/
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Compassionate sense of place
“Place”

Places are very complex – sites of continual
reconfiguration of position, and representation.


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Thus, Place will be contested and fluid, as actors weight different
values/meanings/practices/positions, and mobilize resources.
Furthermore, places are porously boundaried, a mashup
of varied relations, INCLUDING Ecological relations.
ENVIRONMENT north has a “pro-north” perspective,
and attempts to represent interests and particular
 The goal of environmentalism is to create an effective
issues of the region.... We think objectives of
environmental logic of practice.
diversifying the economy while maintaining the
 “Effective” is effective on the ground, in practice.
natural resource base need to be central in regional
practices. In other words, a “sustainable” North,
where economic and social decisions contribute to
the long-term.
“Place” is important as location of lived practice.
(http://www.environmentnorth.ca/about_us.htm.
Punctuation as in original)
Compassionate sense of place
Findings – Environmental habitus


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Many ways of being an environmentalist
Characteristics across these many ways
A) trying to live environmentally
B) awareness of inconsistency
Compassionate sense of place
I don't live in an urban setting, or a co-op. I live in the
country. My house is surrounded by trees. I don't
harvest them. I harvest only what has fallen to the
ground. I don't cut trees off my property although woodburning [to heat the] house. Only those trees that have
reached the end of the life-cycle. My children are the
same way. We do promote recycling. Composting.
Vegetable garden. Not enough to keep us going for a
year, but we try to practice what we preach. I have some
things that I have not been able to get a handle on. My
family is a large consumer of fossil fuels. We commute
back and forth – two vehicles, and a third trip back at
some point. Can I do anything about that right now? Not
if I want to live in the country.
(Interview, Edward)
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Compassionate sense of place
Findings – Environmental habitus



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Many ways of being an environmentalist
Characteristics across these many ways
A) trying to live environmentally
B) awareness of inconsistency
There is a “feel” for how to live well
(environmentally), but people have a hard
time doing so.
Compassionate sense of place
Bourdieusian Concepts
The FIELD
◄─┐
↕ → The logic of PRACTICE
(sens pratique)
HABITUS
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◄─┘
Compassionate sense of place
Findings – Environmental Habitus


Many ways of being an environmentalist
Characteristics across these many ways
A)
B)
C)
D)


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trying to live environmentally
awareness of inconsistency
engaged in “self-disposing”
reflexive
There is a “feel” for how to live well (environmentally), but…
Meisenhelder (1997) says “habitus is naturalized” (p. 166),
but the ecological habitus cannot currently be so,
because it is NOT “natural” to the field of an unecological
society.
Compassionate sense of place
FINDINGS - Place

Place:
Practical & Performative (meaning-contested)
 Experiential (site of lived practice, affects
person)
 Places link/scale up
 Place Matters:


Environmental dispositions important
(“Place matters” ≠ “place matters
environmentally”)
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
Habitus needs somewhere to operate.
Compassionate sense of place
“Caring”

A function of all humans.

Socially shaped; consists of practices rather than
emotions.

Attentive: e.g., listens to/for needs.
Responsive: becomes practical action.


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“Caring for” (close-by relations), but also “caring
about” (at a distance, even politicised).
Compassionate sense of place
FINDINGS – Caring

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Caring
 Deeply authentic
 Disposed to action
 Associated with emotion
Compassionate sense of place

Deeply authentic
Can't to
force
people to care.
 Mary:
Disposed
action
Brian:
You are
seeing
[caring] as
[What
is more
important
to an
myend
work?]
goal,
so the
person is
beyond
respect,
Caring.
Because
caring
implies
doing
and now they
are it.
REALLY
intoisit.OK, but it's
something
about
Respect
notboth
doing
what?
Randy: You
areanything.
making itSo
sound
like
(Interview,
Stan)be better.
respect is good,
caring might
[Both agreed].
(Interview, Mary & Brian)
Not only does [compassion] keeps us from
being strident or judgmental – compassion
can be a fundamental principle that can
reorient our relationships with all the world.
(Kane speaking, Fieldnotes, October 29)
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Compassionate sense of place

Disposed to action
Randy: Do you have any examples [of caring]?
Roger: (rattled off several). I care for Lake Superior
very strongly.... And I cared enough to bring the two
parties [together]. The government was getting
nowhere and I did some secret negotiations with
[name deleted] and [worked out a deal that helped
protect the lake.]
Randy: And you said that's because you care about
Lake Superior?
Roger: Right, if I didn't care – who cares? If I didn't
care that it was a beautiful body of water and we
have to get this crap out of the lake? And we did
that.
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Compassionate sense of place

Caring as emotion
“Love/compassion has to take on structures or they
are just emotions.”
(Sam, Interview)
Mary said they wished to use reason, facts, “logic and
technical soundness” rather than something like
caring.
Chrissy, describing her little plot of land, and a desire
to take care of it well, got embarrassed.
“I never lost my sense of how beautiful that was and
how I did not want to see that beauty destroyed in
any way. Cutting down a tree hurt my feelings.
[laughs] Talk about a tree hugger!”
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Compassionate sense of place
FINDINGS – Caring

Caring
 Deeply authentic
 Disposed to action
 Associated with emotion

Caring for whom/what?


More than self-interest, family, close-by.
Could extend to socio-ecological actants/relations of the
place (including the other-than-human).

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Caring involved specifics, but could recognize that
places were linked to other places
Compassionate sense of place

Caring involved specifics, but could recognize that
places were linked to other places:
Roger [carefully]: Caring for the issues that affect the
planet, the biosphere.
Randy: So caring more about particular issues or
caring for—
Roger: [Talking over me, speeding up] – You can't
really look at the whole world, you have to pick
something that contributes to the whole world.
Anyone says they’re going to look after the whole
world – the question is how? There are millions of
issues out there that but if anyone took on a few
issues to care and to advance, then the whole planet
is positively affected. You can't really say ‘Well, I'm
gonna save the whole planet.’
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Compassionate sense of place
FINDINGS – Caring

Caring
 Deeply authentic
 Disposed to action
 Associated with emotion

Caring for whom/what?

Perceived as politically ineffectual
Too emotional; not reason/rationality
 Over people’s heads (TOO deep)

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Compassionate sense of place
Caringas
as “too
“too emotional”
Caring
deep”
No, I don’t think [describing environmental
All in all, I don't think we try to appeal much to the
work
as caring]
will work
because
don’t
emotional
side of these
issues…
[And ] Ias
an
avoidedYou’re
that term
thinkorganization...
most peoplewe've
are there.
talking
[environmentalist]. In a lot of ways,
over
their heads or
talking
a foreign
environmentalists
areyou’re
seen as
emotionalists,
and that is whylanguage.
we've taken a distinctly
 
different tack, to try to keep things logical and
(Interview, the
Richard)
so forth. Because
minute you get
emotional, then it's personal.
(Interview, Mary)
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Compassionate sense of place
FINDINGS - Environmental Organizations

The ENGO became a site for socialization of the
habitus,
as well as for the maintenance of a more ecological
habitus.
Environmental
discourse
extends
of
Your behaviour
does change.
I think
your the
levelbounds
of awareness,
understanding
it'sinclude
education
a way. I mean
attentiveness–to
otherincomponents
of that's
the
obvious
you work at a job for a couple of years and you're
place.
gonna learn something and I think you do. I can't speak for
 ENGOs concentrated response.
Mary
(she is agreeing). but I do think your behaviour does
 HERE,
anresult
environmentally-oriented
is I
change
as a
of some of the thingsway-of-being
that do go on.
OK.think those are positive changes.
(Interview, Brian)
38
Compassionate sense of place
◄─┐
ENGOs
↕ →
An eco-logical “logic of practice”?
(required a reflexive component)
Ecological
HABITUS
39
◄─┘
Compassionate sense of place
Sustainable society ◄─┐
“Living well (environmentally)
↕
→
without trying”
Ecological
◄─┘
Habitus (includes dispositions of caring)
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Compassionate sense of place
Caring and Place
Both Caring and Place are practice-based logics
 Therefore, attentive to particularity, they challenge
universalizing rationality and rule-oriented
practice.
 Ethos, not ethic

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Both are performative, experiential, operating at
multiple scales & valid outside of strictly human
domains (e.g., socio-ecological places).
Compassionate sense of place
(Fieldnotes, December 19, talking with Stan)
Why does do this stuff? Is it because he is in Thunder
Bay? He said, maybe he would do it if elsewhere.
Also it's the stage in life [he’s at]. His kids are grown.
Maybe [he would do it] if elsewhere–.
Then he said, “Sure, if I was in another community, if I
felt a connection to the community and wasn’t just a
transient... hmmm, I can see the benefits of your
labour.”
42
Compassionate sense of place
Caught not taught:
Growing a compassionate sense of place...

Caring can be commended as a possible orientation for an
eco-logic of practice,
 but with reservations….
Caring habituates (a deeply authentic orientation)
Caring disposes to action
Action occurs in a place (potentially scaled up.)

But, “Caring” devalued




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THEREFORE,
 We need PRACTICE in “caring”
 We need a better language for “caring,” “love,”
“compassion”
 Must be “politicised” (not sentimentalized)
Compassionate sense of place
Darder, Freire: Critical Pedagogy is founded on
love:
Love is... an act of courage, not of fear, love is
commitment to other men. No matter where
the oppressed are found, the act of love is
commitment to their cause – the cause of
liberation.... As an act of bravery, love cannot
be sentimental.... It must generate other acts
of freedom; otherwise, it is not love....
(Freire, 1983, pp. 78-79)
44
Compassionate sense of place
A Compassionate Sense of
Place

45
A “logicwell
Living
of practice”
in a place

a place-conscious ethos of
caring.

a field of care involving the
intersection of selfawareness and practical
attentiveness to the
flourishing of socioecological relations.
Compassionate sense of place
Today’s talk
Getting to the goal: “Living environmentally
without trying”
1)
Via “a compassionate sense of place” (an
environmental “logic” of practice)
2)
Investigate “Caring for Place” (with attention
to sociological theory)
3)
46
Provide suggestions for social movement
organizations as educative.
Compassionate sense of place
The Practice of Environmentalism….
Can environmental social
movement
organizations “teach”
an alternate “logic of
practice” sufficient for
socio-ecological
Fortunately, a reflexive
component
change? can be a
part of the habitus.
This gives hope to
pedagogical efforts.
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BUT it’s not about
“knowledge” only.
Compassionate sense of place
Learning in Social Movements

Careful ethnographies show a tacit dimension to
learning in social movements.
Internalisation of experience, within a situated
context
Learning “must be understood as the gradual
transformation of knowledge into knowing, and part
of that transformation involves a deepening
internalisation to the point that people and their
‘knowing’ are totally integrated one with the other”
(Le Cornu, 2005, p. 175, emphasis added).

48
This understanding fits the notion of a reflexive,
ecological habitus.
CAUGHT not TAUGHT
Compassionate sense of place
The Practice of Environmentalism:
Creating an Ecological Habitus
An ecological sens pratique negotiating an unecological society will need:
1)
2)
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Details: of ecologically sound lifestyle
practices;
Analysis: of the social structures that inhibit
ecological lifestyle;
3)
Understanding: how social relations resist an
ecological worldview and lifestyle;
4)
Internalisation: an ecological habitus will
thrive only in a social field where it is
“sensible”. CAUGHT not TAUGHT.Compassionate sense of place
IN CONCLUSION:

50
Bourdieu’s theory of practice does advance social
movement theory, AND movement praxis.

To be effective, ESMOs would do well to
 Address “field” and “habitus” concurrently
 See themselves differently: as “fields of practice” in
which “living environmentally without trying” begins to
“make sense”.
 Be fields which operationalize a compassionate sense of
place.

There IS potential for environmental organizations to
provide opportunities for transformation of the habitus.

JUST THE START (for me)!
Compassionate sense of place
Caught not taught:
Growing a compassionate sense of place...

Full presentation and all papers (including
an extended piece on “transformative
imagining and movement intellectuals”)
available as downloads:
http://csopconsulting.tripod.com/dd

MERCI BEAUCOUP
Go Forth, and LIVE WELL (without trying)

51
Compassionate sense of place
52
Compassionate sense of place
Observations

How will Socio-ecological improvement happen?




53
The Bourdieusian answer: Transformation of
individual habitus difficult apart from the field.
Progressive social change, but habitus is
conservative?
Habitus
is overly
“[habitus]
tendsdeterministic?
to ensure its own constancy and

NO,
“inertial”.
its but
defense
against change through the selection it
makes within new information by rejecting
information
capable of
calling into can
question
Fortunately,
a reflexive
component
be a its
part of
(Bourdieu
& Wacquant,
the accumulated
habitus. (andinformation”
this gives hope
to pedagogical
1992, p. 167).
elements!)
Compassionate sense of place


54
I find that with a lot of activists, they’re too
far down the road. Maybe they partially live
in the changed world but it hasn’t changed
yet. So they develop plans and programs
and stuff that don’t work because the people
that are in there [municipal government or
other positions of influence] aren’t ready for
them.
(Interview, Richard)
Compassionate sense of place
The Practice of Environmentalism:
Creating an Ecological Habitus
Environmentalism will be
challenged in a field
centred around
hegemonic versions of
realities
that are

Fortunately, a
generally
contrary to its
reflexive
goals. can
component
It
55
be a part of the
habitus.to articulate
will struggle

(and this
gives
its frames
in contention
hope to
with dominant
logics in
pedagogical
which it
“does not make
efforts!)
sense.”
Compassionate sense of place
At some
So Imy
don’t
level
sense
think
or of
another
where
place things
drives
I live has
are
specifics
driven
globalbut
my
and
my
you
overall
opinions.
have
interest
toAnd
address
in
I don’t
politics,
that...
think
my
But
that
overall
you
if I also
lived
interest
in
have
Malawi,
intobeing
have
London
involved
someor
level
in
Toronto,
the
of recognition
political
I would
and
have
that
the a
decision
fundamentally
people making
locally have
different
process
to deal
approach
of society,
with their
towards
I think, is
issues....
my politics.
a bitAnd
more
Maybe
that’s
fundamental
where
what I’m
thearguing
to
local
MEdriving
[with
is I don’t
know
theemphasis],
priorities
how much
is as
reality.
place
opposed
I’m
matters
not
to being
saying
to why
toit’s
people
the
perfect
come
....
location
But
to politics,
you
or the
have
or
locale
to
come
at that
some
to activism.
I’mdegree
in.
focus on what
you knowChristoff)
and what you feel
(interview,
you can directly get your hands around.
56
Compassionate sense of place