Avant, Vol. XII, No. 2, https://doi.org/10.26913/avant.2021.02.06
published under license CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
Rebecca Weber 
University of Auckland
New Zealand
b.weber@auckland.ac.nz
Received 16 July 2020; accepted 14 December 2021; published Online First 31 December 2021.
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Abstract: This article discusses how somatic practices, and in particular, eco-somatic practices, may develop environmental empathy. Using a critical abductive approach, it weaves together frameworks of ecocriticism, embodied and situated cognition, and somatic practices, and presents examples of influential eco-somatics practitioners Sandra Reeve, Praptro Suryadarmo, Andrea Olsen, Joan Davis, and Helen Poynor. Drawing on perceptual psychology (Sewall, 1995), it argues that eco-somatic practices such as theirs, through attending to sensation in natural environments (Bettmann, 2009; Kramer, 2012; Laidlaw & Beer, 2018; among others), develop ecological perception and awareness of both inner and outer sensation. In so doing, this article offers an explanatory hypothesis of how eco-somatic practices cultivate a sense of environmental empathy.
Keywords: somatics; somatic practices; eco-somatics; environment; ecology; cognition; perception
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