Prescribing Nature?: The Cultural Geographies of Forest Bathing

生态疗法--被宽泛地定义为一种涉及与自然互动以促进人类心灵与自然世界相互疗愈的实践的集合--越来越受欢迎;由医学专业人士和健康大师“开处方”。有趣的是，在心理健康和环境危机的背景下，它的受欢迎程度显着上升，许多人现在转向大自然寻求治疗，甚至为此目的创造数字自然。然而，迄今为止，研究往往集中在科学地测量心理和生理影响（心率，激素水平等）。在自然中，忽略了那些正在接受生态疗法的第一手体现帐户的价值。我的项目回应了一个生态实践的跨学科帐户;森林浴（Shinrin-Yoku），一种基于日本神道信仰的与森林进行感官接触的实践。将文化地理学关于自然和环境的争论与健康地理学和医学人文学之间的新兴关系结合起来，我提出了三个问题：1。在森林浴中发现了对自然的哪些理解？2.在身体的尺度上，森林浴是如何体验的？3.森林浴的政治是什么？通过女权主义和创造性的地理方法，前景体现经验和社会文化差异的通知，我将建立三个森林沐浴文化的体现民族志;它的日本起源，它的西方传播，以及它作为沉浸式应用程序/视频和福祉工具促进的数字实践的不断发展的形式。在日本和英国的研究网站和全球数字网站，我的项目将i）补充生态疗法的科学帐户与森林浴的新的文化地理;和，将ii）使用身体的女权主义地理来回应医学人文的要求，对医学/健康的具体帐户，参加生态层面和文化和身体的经验和差异。

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.