The theme for this speculative lunch is the relationship between nature and wellbeing. Scholars and practitioners are invited to this informal meeting, which aims to discuss disciplinary specific understandings of both ‘nature’ and ‘wellbeing’, and to explore their intersection within their own field of expertise.
The purpose of the speculative lunch is to build multidisciplinary conversations and understandings ahead of a research day to be held at IASH on 23rd June 2017.
The initiator is Dr Samantha Walton, Senior Lecturer in English Literature at Bath Spa University, and former IASH Environmental Humanities Fellow. Dr Walton is the PI on an AHRC-funded research project, Cultures of Nature and Wellbeing: Connecting Health and the Environment Through Literature, of which this event is a part.
Research into nature-wellbeing connections has been building over the last decade and is intensifying at the present moment. Policymakers are becoming increasingly interested in examining the relationship between humanity’s and nature’s health, and environmental charities and mental health campaign groups including Mind, The Wildlife Trusts and the RSPB have been pushing for the recognition of nature and wellbeing interconnections in law through campaigning for a Nature and Wellbeing Act for England and Wales.
As well opening up a discussion about the possible the implications of such legislation for Scotland, the Speculative Lunch will provide a space to discuss the cultural, scientific, social and political contexts for understandings of nature and wellbeing connections. While extensive research into environmental factors in illness and healing has been conducted in various social and scientific fields, humanities scholars may be sceptical about the common-sense assumption that nature is healing, or indeed that ‘nature’ can be used as an unproblematic term for defining the non-human world. Indeed, within environmentalist discourse and psychological research, ‘nature’ is frequently named but rarely adequately defined. For example, the current campaign for a Nature and Wellbeing Act depends on the formation of an evidence base linking contact with healthy ecosystems and living nature to human wellbeing, and yet medical studies also suggest that simulated natural sounds and scenery can improve patient recovery time and experiences of pain in equivalent levels to ‘real’ nature. As economic and environmental efficiency drives take place in tandem in the NHS in an era of austerity, decisions that concern the value of ‘nature’ becomes increasingly fraught.
Themes for discussion include:
key terminology and the language used in nature-wellbeing discourse
assessment of the history of key ideas in green care practice and their cultural mediation
examination of literary and other cultural sources as a means of linking scientific to cultural context
the pros and cons of qualitative and quantitative research methods
the development of distinctive research methods which introduce subjective insights into nature-wellbeing discussions.
If you would like to attend this lunch, please send an email to iash@ed.ac.uk, giving your name and indicating any dietary preferences.
