Environmental Education as a Lived-Body Practice? A Contemplative Pedagogy Perspective

Environmental education often focuses on knowledge and rational understanding, but this paper argues that the lived-body is a neglected but crucial site for learning ecological action. It calls for a biophilia revolution where refined bodily experience and enhanced sensing complement knowledge-based approaches. Alienation from the physical environment is linked to alienation from one's own body, rooted in Cartesian dualism. Overcoming this dualism through contemplative pedagogy—such as yoga or mindfulness meditation—can reconnect people to the material world, cultivating intrinsic valuation and care for the environment. Using Merleau-Ponty's concept of the flesh, the paper suggests that experiencing oneself and the world as one fosters meaning and value for all life.

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Abstract

Environmental education usually appeals to the students’ knowledge and rational understanding. Even though this is needed, there is a neglected aspect of learning ecologically fruitful action; that of the lived-body. This paper introduces the lived-body as an important site for learning ecological action. An argument is made for the need of a biophilia revolution, in which refined experience of the body and enhanced capabilities for sensing are seen as important ways of complementing the more common, knowledge-based environmental education. Alienation from the physical environment is seen as one key element in producing environmental devastation. Consequently, human alienation from nature is seen as closely related to alienation from one's body. It is claimed that through overcoming the (Cartesian) dualist alienation of human consciousness from its lived body, we can decrease the alienation of human beings from their environment. Methods of contemplative pedagogy are introduced for addressing alienation. By getting in touch with the tangible lived-body in yoga or mindfulness meditation we reconnect to the material world of nature. Contemplative pedagogy cultivates the body and its senses for learning intrinsic valuation and caring for the environment. Lived-body experience is challenging to conceptualise; we use Maurice Merleau-Ponty's concept of the flesh in our attempt to do so. Finally, this paper suggests some contemplative practices of the lived-body for environmental education. Experiencing the flesh of oneself and the world as one and the same is an environmentally conducive experience that gives value and meaning to the flourishing of all life, human and non-human.