Using contemplative practice to sustain equitable environmental engagement
Elizabeth Allison
Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks October 3, 2023 DOI: 10.4337/9781789905069.00021 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Meditation |
| Keywords | Contemplation Environmental ethics Engineering ethics Environmental planning Epistemology |
| Citations | 5 |
| Key points | Argues that contemplative pedagogy in environmental politics courses can reduce burnout and cultivate resilience, particularly for students and faculty of marginalized identities. |
Abstract
This chapter explores how the use of contemplative practices in the environmental politics classroom - an approach known as contemplative pedagogy or contemplative environmental studies - can help address burnout and cultivate resilience. Contemplative practices can reduce both the physiological and subjective experience of stress that can accompany the challenges of climate change, environmental degradation, and racial injustice, allowing students to explore these issues from a space of calm and stability. As professional mentors, environmental politics faculty can model ways of preventing and ameliorating burnout for their students, in support of sustainable and sustaining future careers. Classroom practices oriented toward reducing burnout may be particularly important for students and faculty of marginalized identities, who experience macro and micro-aggressions on campus, while also carrying the knowledge - or learning - that their communities are at greater risk from climate change and environmental degradation.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on meditation, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mindfulness: A proposed operational definition. | 2004 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mechanisms of mindfulness | 2005 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| How Does Mindfulness Meditation Work? Proposing Mechanisms of Action From a Conceptual and Neural Perspective | 2011 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for depression | 2006 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-transcendence (S-ART): a framework for understanding the neurobiological mechanisms of mindfulness | 2012 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |