Embodying social and environmental justice learning through somatic and mindfulness practices
Sapana Doshi, Tracey Osborne
Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks October 3, 2023 DOI: 10.4337/9781789905069.00031 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Interventions | Somatics Mindfulness |
| Topics | Meditation |
| Citations | 1 |
| Key points | Argues that somatics and mindfulness, grounded in awareness of embodied experience, can connect individual healing with justice-oriented shifts in collective consciousness and action in transformative education. Contends that such embodied awareness is a necessary prerequisite for choosing rather than reacting unconsciously in relation to self and others. |
Abstract
The central pedagogical theme we are exploring in this chapter is how awareness-based mind-body practices can support transformative education that is aligned with environmental and social justice. The chapter reflects on our experience with two related modalities of mind-body practice in the classroom - somatics and mindfulness - aimed at bringing together healing and transformation at the level of the individual with justice-oriented shifts in consciousness and action in the collective. Somatic and mindfulness practices share a commitment to embodiment as defined as the awareness of sensations, emotions, habits, and other experiences of the body and the beliefs that inform them. Somatics and mindfulness practitioners and teachers posit that awareness of embodied experience is a necessary prerequisite for making choices rather than operating out of unconscious reaction in relation to self and others.
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 |