Prescribing Nature?: The Cultural Geographies of Forest Bathing

生态疗法--粗略地定义为一种与自然互动以促进人类心灵与自然界相互愈合的实践的集合--越来越受欢迎；医学专业人士和健康大师都开出了处方。有趣的是，在心理健康和环境危机的背景下，它的受欢迎程度大幅上升，许多人现在转向自然寻求治愈，甚至达到了为此目的创造数字自然的程度。然而，到目前为止，研究倾向于科学地测量心理和生理影响(心率、激素水平等)。我的项目回应了一种跨学科的生态治疗实践：森林沐浴(Shinrin-Yoku)，一种基于日本神道教信仰的感官与森林接触的实践。结合文化地理学关于自然和环境的辩论，以及健康地理学和医学人文学科之间的新关系，我回答了三个问题：1.森林沐浴对自然有什么理解？2.森林沐浴在身体层面上是如何体验的？3.森林沐浴实践的政治是什么？我将以体现经验和社会文化差异的女权主义和创造性的地理学方法为基础，建立一份体现三种森林沐浴文化的民族志；它起源于日本，它在西方的传播，以及它作为身临其境的应用程序/视频和幸福工具促进的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：一)用森林沐浴的新颖文化地理来补充生态疗法的科学描述；二)使用身体的女权主义地理来响应医学人文学科对医学/健康的具体化描述的呼吁，即关注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.