60
Subtle Agroecologies
psychology to explore scientists’ relationship to the ‘outer soil’ as a way to understand scientists’
‘inner soil’. This chapter will use eco-psychology, in its transpersonal, non-dual form, as a way
to examine human relationships with soil, going beyond the various dualistic ways of relating in
order to explore the furthest reaches of the holistic view – the non-dual – while simultaneously
acknowledging other pathways to non-dualism, including eco-feminism, Buddhism and indigenous
perspectives.
ECO-PSYCHOLOGY
There is a distinct possibility that many people reading this chapter will not have a working understanding, much less a relationship, with the discipline of eco-psychology. This is undoubtedly largely
owing to the fact that eco-psychology is still currently in its infancy, with the term itself not being
introduced until 1992 and the ‘offcial’ discipline being established years later. But it is also, in
part, owing to the amorphous nature of what the discipline actually is and does. The easiest way to
defne eco-psychology may be the intersection of ecology with psychology: with ecology informing
psychology (because the discipline of ecology came after the founding of psychology) and psychology assisting ecology. It can do so by using psychology to encourage practices and approaches that
are effective in changing behaviour in people who are already ‘sympathetic to the cause’, as well as
helping to ‘diagnose’ and ‘analyse’ the reasons why so much of humanity is ecocidal, and also to
offer options for ‘therapy’ for those who are unable to see the necessity for change.
Eco-psychology can, however, be much more than that; so much so that it has been criticised as
bordering on a handicap, since the feld itself is so broad that it defes defnition. The author of this
essay does not subscribe to this criticism but rather embraces the potential ambiguity as the very
thing that allows for eco-psychology and its potentiality to enter into the realm of the non-dual.
There are many aspects to eco-psychology. The implications of embodying ecological interconnectivity can be disorienting. Yet at the same time, it provides a lens through which we can examine
the ecocidal disconnection of many modern cultures and institutions, and also offers tools to change
individual attitudes, thereby changing these cultures and institutions from ecocidal to life-affrming
and life-enhancing ones and helping to heal the biosphere in numerous ways.
Eco-psychology does all of these things by functioning at the level of a worldview. Operationally,
eco-psychology is simultaneously grounded within ontology, epistemology, axiology, sociology,
anthropology and ecology (Hedlund-de Witt, 2013). This same maddening pluralism, if properly understood, can lead individuals to a non-dual experience, which may prove to be one of
eco-psychology’s greatest assets: a lived experience of the unity of humans and humus.
MODERN, WESTERN CONCERNS FOR SOIL: GOOD
INTENTIONS, PROBLEMATIC LANGUAGE
Within modern academia, initial attempts to rescue soil from being ‘treated like dirt’ unfortunately,
but expectedly, were undertaken while operating under false conceptions of nature, and in the particular case of soil: a mechanistic, anthropocentric, dualistic perspective. While I acknowledge the
value of all attempts to reconnect with soil, I argue for a non-dual, eco-psychological worldview in
order to accomplish the aim of a holistic reconnection, in ways similar to other non-dual worldviews
(e.g. eco-feminism, Buddhism, systems thinking and First Peoples’ perspectives). For a broader
analysis of industrial and alternative agricultural worldviews, see Cox (2014).
Fouke (2011) argues that moral concern should be extended to soil, based on an argument from
nearness, in which the microbial ecology of the human gut is directly informed by, and in some
way mirrors, soil microbial ecology. Thus, since human existence is dependent on both of these
communities – and has even been partially defned by them in an evolutionary sense – it behoves
modern humans to eschew thinking about soils instrumentally, because in some ways we are soil.
Subtle Agroecologies
psychology to explore scientists’ relationship to the ‘outer soil’ as a way to understand scientists’
‘inner soil’. This chapter will use eco-psychology, in its transpersonal, non-dual form, as a way
to examine human relationships with soil, going beyond the various dualistic ways of relating in
order to explore the furthest reaches of the holistic view – the non-dual – while simultaneously
acknowledging other pathways to non-dualism, including eco-feminism, Buddhism and indigenous
perspectives.
ECO-PSYCHOLOGY
There is a distinct possibility that many people reading this chapter will not have a working understanding, much less a relationship, with the discipline of eco-psychology. This is undoubtedly largely
owing to the fact that eco-psychology is still currently in its infancy, with the term itself not being
introduced until 1992 and the ‘offcial’ discipline being established years later. But it is also, in
part, owing to the amorphous nature of what the discipline actually is and does. The easiest way to
defne eco-psychology may be the intersection of ecology with psychology: with ecology informing
psychology (because the discipline of ecology came after the founding of psychology) and psychology assisting ecology. It can do so by using psychology to encourage practices and approaches that
are effective in changing behaviour in people who are already ‘sympathetic to the cause’, as well as
helping to ‘diagnose’ and ‘analyse’ the reasons why so much of humanity is ecocidal, and also to
offer options for ‘therapy’ for those who are unable to see the necessity for change.
Eco-psychology can, however, be much more than that; so much so that it has been criticised as
bordering on a handicap, since the feld itself is so broad that it defes defnition. The author of this
essay does not subscribe to this criticism but rather embraces the potential ambiguity as the very
thing that allows for eco-psychology and its potentiality to enter into the realm of the non-dual.
There are many aspects to eco-psychology. The implications of embodying ecological interconnectivity can be disorienting. Yet at the same time, it provides a lens through which we can examine
the ecocidal disconnection of many modern cultures and institutions, and also offers tools to change
individual attitudes, thereby changing these cultures and institutions from ecocidal to life-affrming
and life-enhancing ones and helping to heal the biosphere in numerous ways.
Eco-psychology does all of these things by functioning at the level of a worldview. Operationally,
eco-psychology is simultaneously grounded within ontology, epistemology, axiology, sociology,
anthropology and ecology (Hedlund-de Witt, 2013). This same maddening pluralism, if properly understood, can lead individuals to a non-dual experience, which may prove to be one of
eco-psychology’s greatest assets: a lived experience of the unity of humans and humus.
MODERN, WESTERN CONCERNS FOR SOIL: GOOD
INTENTIONS, PROBLEMATIC LANGUAGE
Within modern academia, initial attempts to rescue soil from being ‘treated like dirt’ unfortunately,
but expectedly, were undertaken while operating under false conceptions of nature, and in the particular case of soil: a mechanistic, anthropocentric, dualistic perspective. While I acknowledge the
value of all attempts to reconnect with soil, I argue for a non-dual, eco-psychological worldview in
order to accomplish the aim of a holistic reconnection, in ways similar to other non-dual worldviews
(e.g. eco-feminism, Buddhism, systems thinking and First Peoples’ perspectives). For a broader
analysis of industrial and alternative agricultural worldviews, see Cox (2014).
Fouke (2011) argues that moral concern should be extended to soil, based on an argument from
nearness, in which the microbial ecology of the human gut is directly informed by, and in some
way mirrors, soil microbial ecology. Thus, since human existence is dependent on both of these
communities – and has even been partially defned by them in an evolutionary sense – it behoves
modern humans to eschew thinking about soils instrumentally, because in some ways we are soil.