Keywords

Introduction

To watch the sun sink behind a flower clad hill. To wander on in a huge forest without thought of return. To stand upon the shore and gaze after a boat that disappears behind distant islands. To contemplate the flight of wild geese seen and lost among the clouds and, subtle shadows of bamboo on bamboo.

Zeami Motokivo

With increasing stresses being put on the planet due to climate change, it is important that issues relating to the effect of the Anthropocene are addressed as quickly and as efficiently as possible. Empathy is a key characteristic of the complex relationships between the human and the more-than-human which can be explored to address these issues when conducting environmental education (Gruen, 2015). However, historically empathy has been seen as only a human characteristic in environmental education which means the issues have only been addressed from the human perspective (Clarke & McPhie, 2020). Increasingly, research argues that trying to understand the world from the human perspective only is not conducive to a deep understanding of the problems of the Anthropocene. It is for this reason that this research looks at environmental empathy in education from a more-than-human perspective (Abram, 1996) by seeing empathy as affective and as emerging relationally. In this chapter, I invite you to join me on an exploration of an affective environmental empathy to create a space of co-creation between the more-than-human where new beginnings and new ways of understanding environmental education can emerge.

This chapter explores a novel perspective on environmental empathy in education that emphasises affective relationships between humans and the more-than-human elements of the environment. The concept of empathy is used as a catalyst for change within ethical environmental education. This form of empathy goes beyond human-centric perspectives and instead focuses on affective empathy that encompasses diverse ecological connections which express numerous ecologies of belonging (Braidotti, 2013). The notion of affect is understood as a range of bodily relations that mutually impact each other (Massumi, 2015). By adopting this viewpoint, the chapter creates ruptions by moving away from traditional Western environmental philosophy, which tends to separate humans from other species and perpetuates human dominance over nature (Lindgren & Ohman, 2019). Instead, the emphasis is placed on the more-than-human, while still recognising the essential role of humans in the research (Büscher, 2022). The chapter argues that by understanding the emergence of this type of empathy, it becomes possible to cultivate an ethical mindset that involves thinking and acting in harmony with the environment, aiming to address the adverse consequences of the Anthropocene.

I argue that the shared environment we will entangle ourselves within contains affective empathetic relations between the more-than-human which make up assemblages containing many groups of connections, and which are further connected and disconnected through each other (Deleuze & Guattari, 1980). These assemblages emerge as part of my research process, which are then diffracted. Diffraction is a method of reading insights through one another in attending to and responding to the details and specificities of relations of difference and how they matter (Barad, 2007, p. 71) and is a way to begin to create ruptions through shifting thinking in new directions. It also maps the effects of difference within them when theory is read through the data alongside the experiences (Barad, 2007), creating new becomings.

I invite you to join me on my research journey through co-creation to gain a richer understanding of the entanglements between the more-than-human in environmental research (Fox & Alldred, 2022) so that you too can create ruptions in your own institutions. The invitations draw from my PhD research site where students took part in a ‘Ecosceneography’ session making art from outside environmental materials to create a scene as part of the Global Science Opera: a project which creates productions within a global community using science, art, technology and creativity. The research is conducted under the guidelines of BERA (BERA, 2018) and ethical approval is provided by The University of Exeter ethics committee. Consent is gained from all participants to include photographs, recordings, quotations and artefacts which are anonymised, and the right to withdraw at any stage is given. The ecosceneography session is designed by the Norwegian teacher to provide an insight into what it is like to attempt to creatively think-with-the-environment to shift old ways of thinking about environmental education.

N.B—You May Need a Smartphone or QR Reader to Participate

As we (me and you, the reader) construct assemblages and diffract together it is important to see the process, as an enfolding of nonlinear time, space and matter takes place through what Barad (2007) refers to as intra-activity. Intra-activity is where subjects are seen as entangled rather than separate from each other in which objects emerge. Within intra-actions time, space and matter are relationally constructed between bodies from which continuously changing boundaries emerge. I see this as a lively space from which new thoughts, ways of seeing and new beginnings arise. We also need to be aware of the agency of the entities which emerge from phenomena within the intra-actions which have their own life force (Braidotti, 2013) or vitality (Bennett, 2010) where things act to disrupt usual ways of being and thinking.

Because I see myself as part of the assemblage of my research, I draw from Taylor’s (2016) diffractive musing which offers an approach for academic writing through a series of sensory experiences. This draws upon slow theory (Ulmer, 2017) to think about how to become aware of my body in relation to the more-than-human whilst writing, to take time to contemplate and let things emerge. Taylor (2016) suggests that this allows for the spreading of knowledge rather than the reduction of it. In normative research it is usually elements of human agency that are drawn from to justify phenomena (Pickering, 2001), however in Taylor’s (2016) embodied diffractive musing, ‘Individual agency is reframed as the co-constitution of confederate agencies in which agency is a becoming-together in an ongoing ebb and flow’ (p. 140). In my research this includes the ebbs and flows of agency within the intra-actions between students/teachers/researchers/environment during sessions in Norway as well as the intra-actions between researcher/data/materials/theory following the sessions. By paying attention to these ebbs and flows of agencies in my research, it helps to make me aware of where power lies and if there are any concerns in relation to human subjectivity. In doing this it brings to the forefront the boundaries, properties and the emergences of differentiation whilst remaining entangled as phenomena within the research apparatus. I then ask myself what ‘becomes’ from this?

Agency is not defined as belonging to something or someone but is seen as a ‘force, flow, affect and intensity distributed across a multiplicity of different human-more-than-human modalities’ (Taylor, 2016). This means that when I am discussing particular human or more-than-human agencies within the research process alongside the emergences that have appeared throughout the research, I acknowledge that agencies that are brought to the forefront are affected by other agencies.

In the following sections I will highlight moments that have glowed to me (Maclure, 2013) throughout the journey, both within and beyond the ecosceneography making workshop. Whilst explaining the intra-actions during my research process, I attempt to understand the ebbs and flows of agencies by thinking about where they lie in relation to the human and more-than-human and what this means for agency. These are explained at the beginning of each section using italics. There are also invitations throughout for you as a reader to immerse yourself further into my research so that you can also begin to understand how to think-with-the-environment. I am hoping that if you grasp this idea, you will take it to use within your own teaching/research so that a new understanding of environmental empathy can help to change the future of education incrementally. Instructions to take part are written in capital letters.

In the following sections there are different degrees of the enmeshing of agency between the human/more-than-human when the human opens their senses to allow the more-than-human to come to the forefront. More agency flows towards the human when I invite you to do the task.

Opening up Bodies…

To begin, I open my body to begin practising embodied diffractive musing. To do this I open my senses and move slowly around the site and wait for invitations from the environment to emerge. Invitations from water (Fig. 5.3), wind, colours and movement emerge, which I record using photography, video, sound recording, drawings and note taking. I place them on a PADLET page (a webpage which allows us to place images, recordings, drawings, writings together) to create my first assemblage (Fig. 5.2). Creativity emerges from this when I feel compelled to create a page relating to the intra-actions (Fig. 5.1).

Fig. 5.1
A chart captures a spectrum of experiences, come outside with me invites exploration, what can you hear, encourages soundscapes interactions between humans and non-humans, prompts connections what can you smell, invites olfactory exploration find different levels to look, smell, hear from encourages awareness what can you see prompts visual exploration drawn to color highlights attraction.

Thoughts and invitations

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Fig. 5.2
A screenshot of the P A D L E T. It includes missing elements in the story, significance of absences, learning from captured moments, moving between dimensions, hands in learning, ripples signaling rain, and more. Each photo-text prompts rich reflections on perception and connection.

Snapshot of the PADLET

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Fig. 5.3
A photograph of the jungle scene by a pond, with tall trees, shrubs, and grasses. The water mirrors this green abundance, creating a reflection.

Ripples and reflections in the water

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READER INVITATION—I WOULD LIKE YOU TO TRY TO ENGAGE WITH DIFFRACTIVE MUSING BY GOING OUTSIDE AND OPENING YOUR SENSES. GO ON A WALK IN YOUR GARDEN OR IN YOUR LOCAL AREA AND LISTEN, LOOK, FEEL, SMELL, TASTE (IF IT’S SAFE) THE ENVIRONMENT AROUND YOU. RECORD THE EXPERIENCE IN A WAY THAT YOU FEEL COMFORTABLE WITH: WRITE THINGS DOWN, TAKE PHOTOGRAPHS AND RECORDINGS, DRAW PICTURES…

Use the page I created (Fig. 5.1) as invitations for you to take too:

BY ENGAGING IN THIS, I AM HOPING THAT YOU WILL NOTICE NUANCES WITHIN THE INTRA-ACTIONS BETWEEN THE MORE-THAN-HUMAN AND DIFFERENT FEELINGS ABOUT IT WILL EMERGE FOR YOU.

In the following section I see assemblage building as more of a fluctuation between the degrees of enmeshing of human/more-than-human agency as more people are trying to think with the environment thus fore-fronting it in different ways. However, thinking in relation to subjectivity means that the degrees of enmeshing of human agency begins to increase again.

Assemblage Building Together

Creating the assemblage in the PADLET creates a snapshot of the past/present/future where each offering’s ‘past is never left behind, never finished once and for all, and the future is not what it will come to be in the unfolding of the present moment’ (Barad, 2007, p. 234). However, if the PADLET is not being continuously intra-acted with, or not viewed, then there is a possibility that new becomings will cease to emerge and it will become stagnant because, as I discovered earlier, it is only through intra-actions that new becomings are produced. It is for this reason I have chosen to ask you to contribute to the PADLET.

READER INVITATION—FIRST LOOK AT THE SNAPSHOTS OF THE PADLET BY SCANNING THIS QR CODE FROM YOUR PHONE OR CLICKING HERE.

A screenshot of the Q R code 3.

QR Code 3 Snapshot folder

SCAN THE QR CODE BELOW TO OPEN THE PADLET ASSEMBLAGE ON YOUR PHONE OR CLICK HERE TO OPEN ON YOUR COMPUTER AND FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS WHICH ARE IN THE PINK BOXES.

A screenshot of the Q R code 4.

QR Code 4 PADLET

By placing on the PADLET the photographs, images, videos, drawings and writings I gathered whilst thinking-with-data-and-environment, questions have emerged which I have dotted around the assemblage. There are also places where I feel unable to describe the affective/empathetic moments of the experience between the human/more-than-human so this is where I ask you to try to experience this to gain a deeper understanding of the affective intra-actions encountered.

ONCE YOU HAVE INTRA-ACTED WITH THE PADLET, PLEASE TAKE A SNAPSHOT OF IT AS SHOWN IN Fig. 5.2 AND PLACE IT IN THE SNAPSHOT FOLDER SO THAT OTHERS CAN SEE THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NEW BECOMINGS THAT WILL EMERGE WITHIN EACH INTRA-ACTION.

By placing your own experiences of the intra-actions you have recorded in the task above into the PADLET, we together (and with the students, teachers and environments) are not only learning about our own places but also each other’s. Here, place is viewed as a continual process of the learning and performing of meaning where a sense of place is connected to an embodied way of knowing about socio-material practices (Page, 2020). When many bodies (both human and more-than-human) are involved in creating this place-world, a transdisciplinary approach to knowledge building emerges because both the human and more-than-human from different areas of knowledge, expertise and experiences are intertwined within the research rather than separate from it (Sadownik & Gabi, 2021) in what Haraway refers to as webbed existences (Haraway cited in Sadownik & Gabi, 2021). Here, I argue that an affective environmental empathy is emerging from different senses of place which can alter usual ways of thinking about the environment.

Suddenly, in this section, I feel that the degrees of agency increase abruptly towards the human because I begin thinking about myself in relation to place to understand where I sit within the entanglement. However, thinking about self is still connected to thinking-with-the-environment which means that more-than-human agency is still present because it is forefronted.

The Invitations of Water

READER INVITATION—THINK ABOUT THE PLACE YOU LIVE OR A PLACE YOU HAVE VISITED FOR YEARS. WHAT DRAWS YOU TO IT? WHAT INVITATIONS EMERGE FROM IT? WHAT DO THEY MAKE YOU WANT TO DO?

Following a pause for thought where I reflect on the place where I live, my relationship with water (sea and freshwater ley) and my positive experiences I have had here, I notice that the sea draws me to it on a regular basis. Ahmed (2004) argues that affective bodily memories are stuck to places and specific bodies which could mean that my attraction to the sea could be related to my positive embodied experience of this place over the years. It is for this reason I begin to create another assemblage attending to the invitations of water (Witt, 2018) by gathering photographs, recordings and writings relating to the glow moments of water in my data, whilst thinking about the entanglement of bodies that brought this to the forefront.

Following this, I am drawn to reading about water which makes me feel closer to it. Consequently, I choose to swim with the data to cut through the assemblage created by the invitations of water. By swimming at my place of home whilst thinking-with-water-data I am affectively intra-acting with water which holds the past and is enfolded with the present and the future (Barad, 2007). The ‘lapping of waves’ enacts the vitality of the world (Piotrowski, 2020) through vibrant affective matter where political potentials such as activism emerge from agentic assemblages such as this. This is because they contain past, present and future relationships between the social and the cultural which, when entangled, can bring out new and different beginnings (Bennett, 2010).

To begin the wild-swimming-thinking, I turn to ‘wild-thinking’ (Witt, 2018) to ensure that I continue to read-data-with-environment, for continuing agency of the more-than-human. In this way I see data moving, me moving with data and data moving me (Ulmer, 2017 in Koro-Ljungberg et al., 2017). For wild-swimming-with-data I turn to Shefer and Bozalek (2022) who argue that using a wild-swimming methodology allows you to explore how talking about subjects (such as environmental justice relating to my research), would change within differing environmental situations such as the ocean. This helps to give me a new perspective of affective embodied empathy in different environments. Swimming-writing-thinking draws from slow scholarship (Ulmer, 2017) and hauntology which intimates that bodies of water are entangled with the past, presents and futures which speak in particular ways to the impact of humans on each other and the planet. Therefore, by swimming-with-data-thinking I am again embodied and entangled with the intra-actions between data/environment/subjectivity. Immersing in water allows the body to move in different ways, and because the sea is constantly moving, this means embodied thinking becomes fluid and shifts and changes with the movement of the sea.

Before I enter the water, I read each quotation and look at the images which make me think of different questions related to environmental empathy for environmental justice. For example, the quotation: ‘And the sound. When we were in the woods and heard the water rushing …I think that was one of the strongest sensory things I can remember. I can see a lot around me, but sometimes it’s almost too much. So hearing is… it goes in, while what I see, it becomes too much’ (Norwegian Student) makes me aware of the fact that certain senses may become overloading whilst swimming and that I need to stay aware of the others. The quotation: ‘The drops on the way into the cave, the water drops in the roof and right outside the cave there was moss around, but it was very wet, it was so weird, it looked like green jelly. It was very… touched it and was like “Ugh!’ (Norwegian Student), makes me think about how the sea is a part of the bigger picture of life. Bennett’s (2010, p. 107) quotation ‘…do sandstorms make a difference to the spread of so-called sectarian violence? Does mercury help enact autism? …Can a hurricane bring down a president?’ together with Fig. 5.3, which shows reflections and ripples in the water makes me wonder about how the sea affects other matter which affects other matter in political activism? Furthermore, Shefer and Bolazek’s (2022, p. 129) quotation: ‘…we are not only concerned with thinking about the sea or oceans as object of research, but as space, place and medium to think with and through, to diffract knowledges of ocean/s through other knowledges’, and the image looking out to sea (Fig. 5.4):

Fig. 5.4
A photograph of the sea surrounded by trees, grasses, under a cloudy sky.

Looking out to sea

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fills me with curiosity about what water ‘knows’. Finally, the quotation:

…sea swimming as a hauntological, re-storying project for a justice-to-come scholarship; sea swimming as eco-critical feminist scholarship for thinking the interrelationality of current planetary ecological and social challenges; and sea swimming as Slow, wild scholarship for disrupting normative scholarly logics towards an ontology of relationality and response-ability (Shefer & Bolazek, 2022, p. 130).

and Fig. 5.5 which shows remnants of other things and shadows in the water makes me wonder about the political implications of water.

Fig. 5.5
A photograph of the sea surrounded by trees, grasses, under a cloudy sky. The reflection of the trees and grasses, with remnants visible in the sea.

Shadows and remnants in the water

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Following these thoughts, I prepare myself to go into the sea with the following questions in mind:

  • What emerges from all senses in relation to an affective empathy?

  • What does the sea teach me about the bigger picture of the world?

  • What does the sea tell me about ongoing affect of matter in relation to political activism which emerges from an affective empathy?

  • What does the water (sea) know?

  • What are the political implications of water?

I go to swim…

In this section, agency shifts between humans and more-than-human entities in three cycles. Each cycle begins with a description of matter from the more-than-human perspective, accompanied by my reflections on its significance. I then search for research related to these reflections, which tends to prioritise human agency. This cycle resembles Pickering’s (2012, p. 4) concept of a ‘dance of agency,’ where actions and reactions occur between humans and the world, emphasising agency distribution and power imbalances. Kipnis (2015) suggests that humans often make choices when uncertain, which brings human agency to the forefront, as seen in my research. However, the author argues that this type of agency is not about power dynamics but rather a different form of agency. Therefore, the affective and empathetic interactions in the ‘dance of agency’ revolve around differences and their outcomes.

Swim 1

When I return, I feel compelled to write down as much as I can about the intra-actions (Fig. 5.6):

Fig. 5.6
A screenshot of the book page. The wind catches the waves, the water moves towards my feet. As it gets close, it turns white and moves across my feet, and more.

Notes

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I feel that the sea is relentless and, when I think about this in relation to the question ‘what does the sea know?’ it makes me think about how knowledge building is relentless. I also think about how the water moves around my body and that the force of the waves is dislodging some of my skin cells which are carried off. I feel that I become part of the sea and it makes me think about the question relating to what the sea can tell me about the world. It tells me that it carries a lot of different bodies and parts of bodies even though they can’t always be seen. This means that when intra-actions take place with the sea, they are not just with water. Wunsch (in Duncombe, 2019) argues that the ocean holds memories from past climate states, and this is evidenced through differing states of matter in the deep sea. Thus, the intra-actions take place between water, visible and invisible bodies and parts of bodies. For example, at the beach where I live, a significant accident took place during Operation Tiger, a Second World War exercise for D-Day landing where many American soldiers were killed. When this event occurred, the soldiers’ blood spilled into the sea, and it was dispersed throughout it. I argue that it is still there, parts of the soldiers still exist within the ocean, so it holds the history of the horrible event that took place that day, even though it can’t be seen anymore. Interestingly, a tank, which sat at the bottom of the sea since Operation Tiger has been raised and sits in the local car park as a memorial for those who lost their lives. The tank, rusted by the sea but preserved with a special paint, is a visual representation of the lives that were lost that can no longer be seen. But the tank, which was present during the moment of bloodshed, was rusted by the sea which contained the blood of the soldiers. This means that as a memorial to the dead soldiers:

It alludes to the complex entanglement of the unrepresentable and the representable, or the narrative and the bodily, that is, a mixture of procedures that form together a multidimensional set of information stored in the representational-corporeal memory, translating into a complex recollection of the traumatic event. The memorial character of the site is in fact inscribed into its deep and hidden materiality, which, nevertheless, cannot be accessed through visual means. It remains subcutaneous, enfleshed, etched in the materiality of the place, yet—in fact—its physical traces or material wounds could not be easily narrated in visual terms. (Golanska, 2017)

So, the tank memorial becomes part of the entanglement of my research because it holds memories of place, not just of the shocking events of operation Tiger, but also of every memory the sea obtained throughout history which played a part in the rusting of the metal. In this way, when thinking-with-the-sea in relation to place and its history, it can help to answer the questions relating to the political implications of water through affective, empathetic intra-actions because it can bring to the forefront invisible histories and events which have been forgotten about but are relevant to the present and future of the place in question (Fig. 5.7).

Fig. 5.7
A screenshot of the book page. The wind catches the sand, rustling over the stones and sand as I stand with my feet in the sea. My head is drawn downwards, and more.

Notes

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I feel like the sea’s behaviour is warning me of its power, through its actions. Bawaka Country (2022) argues that the sea (water) has its own language which is understood through its patterns of behaviour such as sounds and movements of which they call ‘wäŋa’. However, it is important for me to understand that ‘wäŋa’ (p. 272) consists of more than just water. The ever-changing tides and winds are also part of the patterns of behaviour of the sea (Gooley, 2017), meaning that when I open my senses to think-with-the-sea, I need to be aware that there are things beyond sounds, things I can see and can taste, feel and smell that are also emerging. Interestingly, some Indigenous peoples (The Anangu) have adopted an embodied type of synaesthesia (when senses merge together), which is culturally constructed through being-with the land (Young, 2005). For example, when the rain falls in the Western Desert the ground becomes a bright green and a strong odour is released from the leaves of the trees on the ground. The Anangu, therefore, understand bright green and the strong odour to mean water and the beginning of growth. The Anangu believe that all bodies on the land are animated and have the potential to be absorbent of one another (Young, 2005). Therefore, Young (2005) argues that all bodies are equally formed with the land through social relations which the author calls a ‘Western Desert Synaethesia’ (p. 66). This can act as a form of sensory mapping which can be used to help to understand how both human and more-than-human are connected to the environment (ibid.). To this end I argue that paying attention to affective empathetic intra-actions within a local environment could lead to a bodily experience of the land in which the senses merge, leading to a deep understanding of the environment. This helps to answer the question above relating to what emerges from my senses in relation to affective empathy (Fig. 5.8).

Fig. 5.8
A screenshot of the book page. Walking back to where I was sitting on the beach, my feet sink into the sand, which encapsulates my foot with each step and slows me down, and more.

Notes

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Here, it feels to me as if the sand is now demonstrating its power, the power to slow me down. In environmental research it is often claimed that slowing down leads to more attentiveness of the surrounding area, increasing sensitivities to the possibilities of other-than-human (Witt, 2018). Interestingly, the stones and sand alert me to its presence by slowing me down so that when I finally sit down, I start to think about them more. I start to wonder how the stones have eroded through meetings between sea/other stones/rocks/wind, which leads me to thinking about how long it has taken for the sea to erode a stone to a piece of sand? Linking this to the questions above relating to the political implications of water, I think about how matter meeting matter kickstarts political activism because the more-than-human is eroding evidence of political bloodshed at this place. Here, I believe that the more-than-human becomes a silent activist alerting me to the fact that it has hidden evidence of a horrible past through the awareness of affective empathetic meetings between matter. Once alerted to this, I then begin to think about other evidence the sand has hidden over the years which leads me to read about the political history of this place which, in time, could be brought to the forefront of discussions about this area. However, opening the idea of more-than-human activism reminds me that I need to be aware of how the research is used from the position of the researcher and that power relations remain neutral even when it is published. This means that if hidden political histories are brought to the forefront, I need to ensure that they are discussed in such a way to ensure that the more-than-human is part of the discussion.

In this section I feel shorter, degree changes between the ebbs and flows of human and more more-than-human agency. First, I try to write poetry based on immediate feelings whilst deciding to record the swim so that the weighting of agency is shared more with more-than-human. The degrees of agency seem to shift back towards the human when I use thought to consider what emerges from the poetry writing and then thinking about how the digital mediates film making. During the making of the film, these shifts seem to get even shorter and quicker as decisions are made by me to an extent but what the camera captured is purposefully left as it is. I feel that agency is then extended to the reader, environment and technology as the film is played and watched. Here, human control, thought and action mean that shorter, quicker degrees of enmeshing of more-than-human become present. Human consciousness means that they can see themselves as separate from everything else in the world and can therefore make choices about things that can have an effect on others. However, if agency is understood to be part of all things but as a different type of agency as I have discussed above, then ethical choices and actions need to be made with this in mind. (Kipnis, 2015)

Swim 2

Because I felt that the sea pushed me back for the first swimming-thinking-with-data activity, I decide to swim again on another day. The day I choose to swim is a calmer day, so I am able to immerse myself in the water. This time, taken from the emergences of the first swim, I swim with an awareness of the memories of place; of embodiment relating to my senses; of understanding the environment as an activist with the things it brings to the forefront; and of power relations and ethics. This time, I strap a Go-pro camera to my chest to record the experience.

As I immerse myself in the water, I pay attention to how my body reacts in relation to my senses. I feel compelled to create a poem relating to the experience so I can show how the senses are connected to the moment of immersion (Fig. 5.9).

Fig. 5.9
A screenshot of the one-sentence poem, Shifting smooth, rough, dark, light mounds, rustling and quiet roaring, skin tingling, sometimes high, sometimes low, tensed body, open mouth gasping, bubbling and splashing, and more.

One-sentence poem

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I write the poem as one sentence because it reflects the experiences of all of my senses which are engaged in the moment. I think about how I understand the environment through the socialisation of my embodied senses (Young, 2005). I write again (Fig. 5.10):

Fig. 5.10
A screenshot of the book page, the tingling of the water on my skin tells me the water is not too cold which alerts me the fact that it is not winter. The gentle sand of the water running of the stones together with the light from the sun, and more.

Notes

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To this end, the awareness of my embodied senses activates my memory to bring to the forefront what I have previously learned about place. It is commonly known that senses such as smell are linked to the memory of autobiographical experiences which can also be evoked by pictures and words (Mouly & Sullivan in Menini (ed), 2010). This means that when experiences emerge through the senses, they are pedagogical because they teach something that is then ingrained to memory. However, Mouly and Sullivan in Menini (ed) (2010) also state that many of these sensing memories are ingrained between the ages of 11 to 20 which may explain why Indigenous peoples such as the Anangu have a deeper understanding of their environment due to them being connected to the land from birth. To this end, by being aware of my senses as embodied through affective empathetic intra-actions, it has alerted me to things about the sea that I wouldn’t normally notice which has, in turn, activated my memory of what I have previously learned about place. In this way, I have become entangled in the process of activism by opening myself up to more things being brought to the forefront.

To further this entanglement, it is essential that I also include the digital which has emerged through the assemblage building and diffraction process through the various ways I have captured and arranged ‘data’. Adams and Thompson (2016) argue that ‘[t]he digital is encroaching on and penetrating our flesh, infecting all aspects of lifeworlds and has thus inaugurated persistent questions about our relationship with more-than-human and the “more-than-human” world’ (p. 5). To this end, during data collection, it is difficult to move away from using digital objects to assist so it is necessary for humans understand technology as co-creating beside them. By me understanding digital technology as both a co-researcher and a participant in my data collection and film making sees technology as having an essence which replaces the concept of being with the concept of form where the essence of technology is a process of formation, and essentially a new becoming (Hoel & van der Tuin, 2013). In this way, the data emerging from my data collection, assemblage forming and thinking comes into being through the mediation of technology by also being agentic. I place questions emerging from this into digital software to create an image I can use to remind me of the agency of the digital (Fig. 5.11):

Fig. 5.11
An illustration of digital notes, digital data is generative and energetic. Questions posed, what radiating lines of force does this technology put into play, what does a technology reverse into when used ubiquitously or pressed to an extreme, what does a technology enhance, what human capacity is extended, enhanced, or amplified when this technology is used.

Digital notes

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I decide to put the recordings of my intra-actions with the sea and water data together in a film to see how agency emerges from the digital and to provide you with a multisensory experience of the swimming-with-data activity. First, the digital devices record parts of the wild swimming and associations with the thinking around it as an emergent process as I leave the film to record throughout the whole experience. Individual films from the first wild-swimming-thinking place themselves into a folder at random when I attach wires between devices. These are imported by me linking communication between the computer and the software and each individual film is organised in no order within the software. The films are left in this order. The film from the second swim is overlaid over the film from the first swim using the same process so that the entanglement between the two is recognised. The sound is left to merge from each film which means that the dominant sound is heard more.

READER INVITATION—IF YOU HAVE ACCESS TO THE SEA, GO AND GET YOURSELF A CUP OF SEA WATER TO SMELL WHILST WATCHING THE FILM. IF YOU ARE NOT NEAR THE SEA YOUR SMELL SENSES SHOULD BEGIN TO LINK TO THE SEA IF YOU BECOME IMMERSED ENOUGH IN THE FILM. GET YOURSELF A TRAY OF COLD WATER, TAKE OFF YOUR SHOES AND SOCKS AND PLACE YOUR FEET IN THE TRAY TO FEEL THE WETNESS OF THE SEA. OPEN THE WINDOW TO FEEL AND HEAR THE BREEZE OUTSIDE. SCAN THE QR CODE BELOW TO ACCESS THE FILM AND KEEP IN MIND THE QUESTIONS IN THE IMAGE ABOVE (Fig. 5.11).

OR CLICK HERE

A screenshot of the Q R code 5 which is film Q R code.

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Starting from the Middle for a Non-conclusion

By sharing my journey with you I am hoping that this chapter has given you an insight into what I mean by an affective, embodied environmental empathy through a sensory engagement with your environment. I also hope you were able to feel the entanglement of matter whilst feeling part of it at the same time. When experiencing this deeply, there may have been moments when you could not explain what you were feeling. It is within these moments that I like to think of this entangled empathy as similar to the Japanese theory of ‘Mono no aware’ (Prusinski, 2012, pp. 27–28). Mono no aware is described as an empathy towards things and is ‘the ability to discern and bring out the unique inner charm of every existing phenomenon or thing, to identify oneself with the object being contemplated, to empathise with its mysterious beauty’ (Prusinski, 2013, pp. 27–28). Also, in relation to the Japanese term ‘Yugen’ which means a deep understanding of the mystery and aesthetics of the universe which cannot be described but should remind you of the complexity and the simplicity of the entanglement of life. This moment is:

Hidden behind the clouds, but not entirely out of sight, for we feel its presence, its secret message being transmitted through the darkness however impenetrable to the intellect. The feeling is all in all. (Suzuki cited in Prusinski, 2013, pp. 27–28)

If you did not arrive at these moments, go back and do it again or keep practising daily. You will get there.

Furthermore, by practising and understanding my process in relation to empathy I hope that you understand how knowledge is relational and that activisms emerge from the affective relational intra-actions you have experienced:

Practices of knowing and being are not isolable; they are mutually implicated. We don’t obtain knowledge by standing outside the world; we know because we are of the world. We are part of the world in its differential becoming. (Barad, 2007, p. 185)

In this sense, I argue that this practice can be actioned in any situation and through any educational subject by sharing the tasks I have set out in my chapter and adapting them to any classroom and outside environments alongside using creative methods for affective intra-actions to come to the forefront. If this is followed, I argue that ruptions which shift normative ways of thinking can emerge in all types of education going forward. In this sense, I understand affective empathetic relations as emerging from creativity and as a catalyst for ethical educational futures. Give it a try.