The Body of the World: A Queered Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of Embodied Sensation, More-than-Human Kinships and Entangled Futures

In order to challenge Western nature connection science's binary understanding of the human-nature relationship which upholds colonial logics and risks perpetuating ongoing coloniality and limits its impact for addressing climate change intersectionally, this present research traced the lived experiences of Black, Indigenous and People of Colour environmental activists' relationships with the more-than-human world. By exploring the phenomena of the 'naturehuman' relationship through a decolonial dialogue between queer feminist phenomenology and interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), the research revealed four key insights: (1) the body is a critical sensory site of 'naturehuman' relations, where embodied awareness creates pathways for ecological intimacy; (2) kinship and reciprocal relations weave an embodied ontology that transcends conventional notions of attachment; (3) moving beyond binaries toward entanglement promotes intersectional environmentalism and helps prevent the perpetuation of colonial ideologies; and (4) arts-based ceremony offers ways to materialize new relations and futurities. Deconstructing a queered IPA into a post-qualitative arts-based ceremony, 'The Body of the World' emerged as a conceptual framework building on Haraway’s natureculture, where 'naturehuman' (focus on kinship/relations) and corporeality decompose into a space of possibility. This framework reveals that an embodied, reciprocal kinship with the more-than-human world is a pathway toward collective transformation that addresses embodied colonial wounds while nurturing ‘multispecies ecojustice.’ In sum, the research reimagines environmental justice as a kinship-making process, emerging not through individual behavior change in nature connectedness but through radical revisioning of how bodies, ecologies, culture and more-than-human worlds entangle, co-terminus in their mutual flourishing. Theoretical and methodological implications are discussed.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Cambridge

Year dc:date.issued

2023

Author dc:creator

• Branham, Lindsay

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Good, David

• nature
• natureculture
• decolonial methodologies
• reciprocity
• Indigenous knowledge systems
• kinship ecologies
• intersectional environmentalism
• climate coloniality
• entanglement
• post-qualitative inquiry
• relational epistemologies
• interoceptive awareness
• body awareness
• interpretative phenomenological analysis
• embodied ontology
• arts-based inquiry
• queer ecology
• phenomenology
• ecological intimacy
• environmental justice
• nature connection
• mixed methods
• post-qualitative

Licence

• https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/7118f605-242b-4818-8c48-8a2fb5a988ea/download
• http://purl.org/NET/rdflicense/allrightsreserved

Language dc:language

eng

DOI dc:identifier.doi

https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.117987

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/383732