Yoga for Eco-Burnout
In this post, I provide a short synopsis of how my research trajectory on alienation and intimacy has evolved over the years. Following this, I provide a summary of the online panel discussion with environmental philosopher Dr. Glenn Albrecht, author of ‘Earth Emotions’ book, held as a part of Spring 2024 — Pratt Earth Action Week.
RESEARCH TRAJECTORY
2012 — Identity, Performativity, and HCI
I co-organized an international workshop on ‘Identity, Performativity, and HCI’ with Dr. Ann Light and Dr. Tuck Wah Leong that was held in Austin, Texas, USA as a part of the ACM CHI 2012 conference. In our workshop proposal, we pointed out that there is “an inherent need to engage with concepts of self and identity, and how these shape people’s use of technologies” [Kannabiran et al 2012] in relation to design. The goal of our workshop was “to question assumptions, challenge existing norms, and critique power relationships involved in the process of design and the designed product, thereby making it amenable to social change” [Kannabiran et al 2012].
On the evening before the workshop, the three of us met for dinner. I was struggling with depression and felt disenchanted with everything. We were sharing personal stories of struggle, cynicism, and self-growth. At some point, Ann told me ‘You have to choose life!’ I burst into tears and told her ‘I don’t know how’. This incident had a profound impact on me. I have held on to Ann’s words and been working on learning to ‘choose life,’ personally and professionally.
2019 — Towards Ecologically Responsible Innovation
A few years later, I was invited to give a talk at Cornell Information Science on Nov 22, 2019. My talk was titled “Towards Ecologically Responsible Innovation” in relation to design of technology. In this talk, “I use the term ‘maladies of ecological activism’ to denote the attitudes, dispositions, behaviors, beliefs, values, practices, systems, words, and actions that are opposed and/or contradictory to ecological responsibility towards our planet and all our fellow inhabitants” [Kannabiran 2019]. I argued that “given the scale of ecological crisis facing us, it behooves us to identify what ails the collective corporeal” [Kannabiran 2019].
Over the years, my research has emerged with a focus on “wellbeing through an ecological feminism informed approach in relation to the design of interactive technology. Specifically, I am interested in understanding issues of interpersonal alienation and designing to support different types of intimacy and kinship structures in communities” [Research Overview].
2022 — No Desire to Care
I have been a regular columnist for the ACM interactions magazine since summer 2020. The editors of the Jan-Feb 2022 ACM interactions issue on ‘Climate Care’ state that “we must care, and that to care is to be bodily invested, to make connections that matter, and to discover a solidarity with others of all kinds — for an earthbound flourishing” [Wiberg et al 2022, emphasis added]. As a part of this issue on ‘Climate Care’, I wrote an article titled ‘No Desire to Care’ that explores the experience of acedia in relation to climate change. “Experiencing acedia makes us want to be elsewhere doing something else perpetually (frantic escapism) while being unable to be fully present and care here and now (restless boredom)… The trouble with acedia is not just a lack of care but an absence of desire to care, that is, not caring that one does not care” [Kannabiran 2022, emphasis added]. In this article, I draw attention to the term meuacide coined by environmental philosopher Glenn Albrecht.
“Meuacide is defined as the extinction of emotions: As rich and diverse emotional connections to place and home at all scales are erased they are replaced with feelings of numbness, torpor, emptiness, paralysis, non-feeling, inertia, alienation and deadness.”
Source: https://glennaalbrecht.wordpress.com/2020/02/02/meuacide-the-extinction-of-emotions/
SYNOPSIS
On April 5, 2024, New York City experienced an earthquake of 4.8 magnitude. On the next day, Glenn opened our online discussion by mentioning how some cities have power cutoff caused by landslides and torrential rain at his current location in Sydney, Australia. These climate change related events along with on-going war and various social injustices around the world sets the background context for our discussion. I requested Glenn to introduce his work to our panel audience and he provided a brief summary of his book ‘Earth Emotions’ published in 2019. Here are a few key points from his book that were discussed during the panel.
- “…we have now entered the “age of solastalgia,” where our emotional compass is pointing in the direction of chronic distress at the loss of loved “homes” and places at all scales. There is already a global pandemic of depression in humans. At its extreme, the lived experience of Earth murder, or “tierracide,” is with us. As climate warming and other environmental disasters start to overwhelm residual terranascient places, we will mourn that which is passing.” [Albrecht 2019, p 11].
- “…The negative transformation of a loved place triggers a negative emotion in the whole person who is still emplaced. Their love of their place remains, but they want back those positive elements of place that gave them such a positive sense of place prior to the “invasion.”” [Albrecht 2019, p 32].
- “I define “solastalgia” as the pain or distress caused by the ongoing loss of solace and the sense of desolation connected to the present state of one’s home and territory. It is the existential and lived experience of negative environmental change, manifest as an attack on one’s sense of place. It is characteristically a chronic condition, tied to the gradual erosion of identity created by the sense of belonging to a particular loved place and a feeling of distress, or psychological desolation, about its unwanted transformation. In direct contrast to the dislocated spatial dimensions of traditionally defined nostalgia, solastalgia is the homesickness you have when you are still located within your home environment.” [Albrecht 2019, p 38-39].
- “My aim in creating solastalgia was to pinpoint the emotional base of human-Earth relationships, to isolate the particular form of distress that is at the core of the shattering of these living bonds between people and place, and to set about repairing them by the use of positive emotions and values. The story of soliphilia is one of local and regional people responding to Earth desolation by political and policy action. Such action will replace the negative with a repaired and revitalized place that once again delivers positive emotional sustenance. Emotional repair work is intimately tied to the biophysical restoration of degraded land. The point is that as humans involve themselves in the restoration project and heal damaged places, they also heal themselves.” [Albrecht 2019, p 195, emphasis added].
2024 — Choose Life!
So what does it mean to choose life? According to Glenn, we must choose to invest in symbiotic relationships with others that are mutually beneficial (as opposed to atomistic individualism that focuses on profit alone). I mentioned: “Moving beyond self-care as individual consumerism and private therapy, it is necessary to explore ways of collectively grieving for our ecological losses” [Kannabiran 2022]. Building on this theme, we discussed about the need for collectively processing our ecological grief and burnout through body-based communal practices like yoga.
Glenn also mentioned about his work with Indigenous Elders and the importance of having a sense of humor as a part of collective healing. To choose life requires us to notice how life grows around us (e.g. gardening) and investing in creating meaningful life-affirming moments with others. We discussed about the interconnections between the microcosm (individual emotions) and macrocosm (collective emotions) that can be nourished through yoga practice. Finally, Glenn spoke about soliphilia and the necessity for repairing damage with others.
“Soliphilia: The love of the totality of our place relationships, and a willingness to accept the political responsibility for protecting and conserving them at all scales. Soliphilia is manifest in the interdependent solidarity, and the wholeness or unity needed between people, to overcome the alienation and disempowerment present in contemporary political decision-making about the environment. Soliphilia is now added to love of life and landscape, to give us the love of the whole, and the solidarity needed between humans to keep healthy and strong that which we all hold in common.”
Source: https://glennaalbrecht.wordpress.com/2019/09/08/soliphilia/
PS: If you are interested in communal body-based practices for addressing burnout caused by ecological concerns and social justice related issues, please feel free to contact me.
