In Search of Ecopedagogy: Emplacing Nature In the Light of Proust and Thoreau

Abstract

In this article I intend to explore one possible way of using place to rethink nature, the relationship between humans and nature, and the implications for education. The elucidation and discussion of the sense of place will reveal that there are profound and superficial or, placeful and placeless, senses of place. This paper examines the possibilities of thinking nature based on this particular sense of place. The profound sense of place, in the light of Jeff Malpas, Marcel Proust, and David Henry Thoreau, can provoke in us an awareness of care about the place. If the nature can be sensed as placeful to individuals, as this paper will argue, it would be very possible for individuals to care about and be committed to the conservation of the nature.

Keywords:

• nature
• sense of place
• placefulness
• Proust’s Principle
• Thoreau

Acknowledgements

The author gives deep thanks to the reviewers for their very careful and thoughtful remarks.

Notes

1. Unlike Walls (2000), who sees nature of some writers such Wordsworth and Thoreau as incorporating, not opposing to, human agency and activities, Sagoff (1992) defines nature as the world utterly free from human disturbance and intervention.