Prescribing Nature?: The Cultural Geographies of Forest Bathing

生态疗法——被宽泛地定义为一种与自然互动的实践活动，以促进人类心灵与自然世界之间的相互治愈——正日益流行；由医疗专家和健康专家开出的处方。有趣的是，在心理健康和环境危机的背景下，它的受欢迎程度显著上升，许多人现在转向大自然寻求治疗，甚至为此目的创造了数字自然。然而，迄今为止，研究往往侧重于科学地测量身处大自然的心理和生理影响（心率、激素水平等），而忽视了那些接受生态疗法的人的第一手具体记录的价值。我的项目回应了一个跨学科的生态治疗实践；森林浴（Shinrin-Yoku），一种与森林进行感官接触的实践，基于日本神道教信仰。将文化地理学关于自然和环境的辩论与健康地理学和医学人文学科之间的新兴关系结合起来，我解决了三个问题：1。在森林浴中发现了对自然的什么理解？在身体的尺度上，森林浴是如何体验的？森林浴实践的政治是什么？在女权主义和创造性地理方法的指导下，我将建立一个关于三种森林沐浴文化的具身民族志；它起源于日本，在西方传播，以及在沉浸式应用/视频和健康工具的推动下，它作为一种数字实践的演变形式。通过研究日本和英国的网站以及全球的数字网站，我的项目将i)用森林浴的新文化地理来补充生态疗法的科学研究；并且，将ii)使用身体的女权主义地理学来回应医学人文学科对医学/健康的具体描述的呼吁，这些描述涉及生态维度以及文化和身体体验和差异。

Ecotherapy - loosely defined as a gathering of practices involving interacting with nature to promote mutual healing between the human mind and the natural world- is increasingly popular; 'prescribed' by medical professionals and wellness gurus alike. Interestingly its popularity has risen significantly in the context of both mental health and environmental crises, with many now turning to nature for healing, even to the extent of creating digital natures for this purpose. To date however, research tends to focus on scientifically measuring the psychological and physiological effects (heart rates, hormone levels, etc.) of being in nature, overlooking the value of first-hand embodied accounts of those undergoing ecotherapies.My project responds with an interdisciplinary account of one ecotherapeutic practice; forest bathing (Shinrin-Yoku), a practice of sensory engagement with the forest, based in Japanese Shinto beliefs. Drawing together cultural geography's debates on nature and environment with emerging relations between health geography and medical humanities, I address three questions:1. What understandings of nature are found in forest bathing?2. How is forest bathing experienced at the scale of the body?3. What are the politics of forest bathing practices?Informed by feminist and creative geographical methods that foreground embodied experience and socio-cultural difference, I will build an embodied ethnography of three forest bathing cultures; its Japanese origins, its Western diffusion, and its evolving form as a digital practice facilitated by immersive apps/videos and well-being tools. Studying sites in Japan and the UK and digital sites globally, my project will i) complement scientific accounts of ecotherapy with novel cultural geographies of forest bathing; and, will ii) use feminist geographies of the body to respond to medical humanities' calls for embodied accounts of medicine/health that attend to ecological dimensions and to cultural and bodily experience and difference.