SciELO - Scientific Electronic Library Online

 
vol.4 special edition author indexsubject indexarticles search
Home Pagealphabetic serial listing  

Ambiente & sociedade

On-line version ISSN 1809-4422

Abstract

CARVALHO, Isabel Cristina Moura  and  STEIL, Carlos Alberto. The sacralization of nature and the 'naturalization' of the sacred: theoretical contributions for the comprehension of the intercrossing between health, ecology and spirituality - The "cultivating self": health, ecology and spirituality.Translated byLeonardo De Brito Jeronymo. Ambient. soc. [online]. 2008, vol.4Selected edition, pp. 0-0. ISSN 1809-4422.

This paper aims at identifying practices for self-perfectioning and environmental care linked to physical as well as mental and spiritual health and well-being. It focuses on the points of intersection between ecological and religious practices that engender processes for the "sacralization of nature" and the "naturalization of the sacred". Our field of empirical interest is the one of religious practices of ecological groups and the ecological practices of religious groups. As theoretical and methodological references we chose contributions from Merleau-Ponty's philosophy of perception, Bateson's ecological psychology, Thomas Csordas' phenomenological anthropology and Tim Ingold's ecological epistemology, since these perspectives join in the purpose to break up the dualities mind/body, subject/environment, nature/culture. We encounter in the concept of landscape a point of convergence between these different approaches as a body of the world. Thus the hypothesis which we support is that the landscape, as a body of the world, may be taken as the soil of culture, in the sense that the human subject, in his or her corporeal condition of being of this world is not only set in the landscape, but the landscape is the very condition of his or her engagement in the world and in culture.

Keywords : Ecology; Religion; Health; Phenomenology; Self-perfectioning.

        · abstract in Portuguese     · text in English     · English ( pdf )