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| KEYWORD | DEFINITION |
| Adaptive capacity | The ability of a system [human or natural] to adjust to climate change to moderate potential damages and to cope with the consequences. |
| Afrocentrism | Afrocentrism is a cultural theory that emerged in response to eurocentric/Orientalist racist attitudes about African people and their contributions to philosophy, science, history and culture. Afrocentric theory infers that humans originated in Africa, that first civilizations were in Africa, and that migrations flowed from Africa to other continents (Wolfstone, Mnajdra, p.4). |
| Agency | Barad, viewing agency not as a noun, but as a process, uses the adjective ‘agential.’ Agential realism argues that agency is performed or enacted through embodied discourse, and that all matter is agential. In a recent interview, Barad declares that matter is living: “All matter feels, converses, suffers, desires, yearns and remembers” (Dolphijn & van der Tuin, 2012a, np). In philosophy, agency is the capacity of a person to act with intention in the world. In sociology, an agent is an individual engaging with the social structure (a social actor). Synonyms: intentional, volitional. |
| Androcentric | under construction |
| Anthropocentrism | Anthropocentrism is defined as the dualistic notion that humans are separate from and superior to nature (Wolfstone, Becoming Ecocentric, 2016, p.5). Regarding human beings at the centre of existence. (Oxford Canadian dictionary) Synonym: homocentric |
| Archaeomythology | under construction |
| Arctic Sea Ice Melt | under construction |
| Biocultural Diversity | under construction |
| Boreal Forest dieback | under construction |
| Capitalism | Capitalism is a system which favours the existence of capitalists. Capital is financial ownership of or investment in economic enterprises, denoting a distinctive form of private property. Capitalism is associated with industrialized or factory production with a free market for the exchange of money and commodities. Since the fall of communism, capitalist is the dominant economic system. Capitalist innovation tries to extract the maximum benefit from labour and thus produces wealth while deepening inequalities; it champions individualism while exercising autocratic power over labour. (New Keywords, 22-26) |
| Climate change adaptation (CAA) | The process of adjusting to actual or expected climate and its effects. In human systems, adaptation seeks to moderate harm. |
| Climate Change Mitigation | Actions taken to limit the magnitude and/or rate of climate change. Climate change mitigation aims to reduce in human emissions of GHGs. |
| Collective unconscious | under construction |
| Colonialism | Colonialism is the strategy of appropriating another culture’s land, identity and subjectivity in order to rule over its people (as subjects) by redefining them and writing their history from the colonizer’s point of view. ‘Colonial’ not only means ‘foreign’; it also means imposing and dominating. See also Neocolonialism, Decolonization. |
| Conscious and unconscious | under construction |
| Conscious Participation with Nature | Owen Barfield’s ‘conscious participation’ phase describes an emerging relationship in which humans consciously merge with nature to experience “a new level of unity” through the “systematic use of imagination” to integrate conscious and unconscious aspects of nature (Barfield, p.163). The “unity and coherence of nature depends on participation of one kind or another” (p.168). Humanity remembers to think symbolically ”by valuing the Imagination as a mode of perception that brings knowledge…a way of knowing won through a total relationship” (Baring & Cashford, 1991, p.678). See also Owen Barfield in Foundations |
| Cosmology | Cosmology lies intertwined with and beneath culture. Culture is specific to place and experience and thus relatively transitory, whereas cosmology lives on for much longer once it is established in the myths, legends, instincts and traditions of people. It is deep knowledge that is lived, embodied and often not articulated in linguistic form. Cosmology survives for millennia (Wolfstone, Mnajdra, p.3). Transitions from one belief system to another require a long process of change. Remnants of old beliefs are retained in myth and custom in spite of new technologies and cultural changes (Haarmann, 2007, p. 176). |
| Decolonization | Decolonization, also known as anti-colonialism, is the intellectual, cultural and political process of resisting, exposing and interrupting colonialist power in all its forms, particularly the subtle, insidious forms of neocolonialism and eurocentrism. It is the agentic activity of enlivening postcolonial theory with a dignity-affirming bottom-up approach that transforms social relations (Dei, 2012, p.118) and reclaims the land, language and cultural rights of indigenous peoples. See also colonialism, neocolonialism. See Theory in Foundations. |
| Deconstruction | under construction |
| Disavowal | Denial, negation and disavowal are three types of denialism. Disavowal involves radical splitting and a range of strategies that ensure that reality can be seen and not seen at one and the same time. Disavowal is often called turning a blind eye, but this description does not go far enough in distinguishing disavowal from negation. There are two key differences. First, with disavowal our more wish-fulfilling narcissistic part may have come under the sway of a more entrenched arrogant attitude that can exert a powerful hold on the psyche. Second, disavowal may be part of a more organized and enduring defensive structure, whereas negation is typically a more transitory defence against anxiety.” (Weintrobe, p.38). |
| Dualism, duality | Dualistic philosophy undergirds the oppression of nature by humans, as well as intersectional oppressions based on gender, race, ability and class. Descartes, the father of modern dualism, held that there are two kinds of existing things: physical and mental. He viewed the natural world as a vast machine, meaningless in itself and subject to control by humans. Since the eighteenth century, Cartesian dualism has dominated Western science, which favours materialism and reductionism. Some of the binary oppositions produced by Western dualism are man/woman, culture/nature, thinking/feeling, mind/matter. The binaries are valuated differently insofar one part of the binary is deemed superior and orderly, while the other part of the binary is valuated as inferior and disorderly, and therefore located outside the sphere of influence. This dualistic paradigm is the foundation of hierarchal systems, including patriarchy, androcentrism and anthropocentrism (Wolfstone, Unitive Experience, 2014). |
| Ecocentric | Ecocentrism refers to the nondual notion that humans are nature and are interdependent with all beings in the web of life. (Wolfstone, Becoming Ecocentric, 2016, p.5) |
| Ecofeminism | Ecofeminism integrates radical feminist philosophy and environmental philosophy. Ecofeminism proposes three core premises: 1. The oppression of women and the domination of nature are fundamentally connected. 2. This is because patriarchal dualism places women and the concept ‘Nature’ in the same classification, which is deemed to be of less worth than the ‘Culture/Masculine’ classification. 3. Therefore any process that makes humanity more ecologically aware must also overcome the oppression of women. Ecofeminism rejects neoliberal economics as inherently anthropocentric. See Foundations. |
| Ecological imperialism | under construction |
| Elemental | The elements are an onto-ethico-epistemology. Water, air and earth create the very materiality of the landscape; “wind, fire and water serve as transformative agents and catalysts of ecological change” (MacAuley, 2010, p.336). An elemental ethic points to collective responsibilities for both multi-centred and particular bodies of water, air and earth that sustain ecosystems (p.337). From a Jungian perspective, the elements conjure up mythical and material images, characterized as “archetypes, which are ideas or forms of thought emanating from the experiences of a people in such a way that they are powerfully present in the collective unconscious” (p.66). The elements are participatory; they keep each other balanced by their dynamic energies that create, transform and destroy, like Kali-Ma, and thus are inherent in the intra-action of regeneration (Wolfstone, Becoming Ecocentric, 2016, p.15). See also Foundation3 |
| Emancipation | under construction |
| Embodied Ways of Knowing | Earth’s elemental qualities in us are experience and stability. In epistemology, Earth provides insight on embodied existence and embeddedness in living ecosystems – the web of life. Embodied ways of knowing have the capacity to transform situations when we apply experiential knowledge, integrate sensory data and listen to the implicit. Experience is embodied knowledge. Every natal comes to being by way of sexual reproduction and is in turn sexuate (Jantzen, p.150). Natals are rooted in embodied knowing through sexuality, birthing and nurturing new life where pain, ecstasy and joy intermingle in the everydayness of living. Feminist scholars have contributed significantly to embodied epistemology, but I also draw on Eugene Gendlin’s philosophy of the implicit: “Our bodies sense themselves in living in our situations. Our bodies do our living. Our bodies are interaction in the environment…Our bodies don’t lurk in isolation behind the five peepholes of perception” (Gendlin, 1992, p.345). |
| Empathy | Empathy requires imagination – the capacity to imagine the feelings of the ‘other’. Empathy with nature is the imaginal capacity to participate with nature emotionally, cognitively and ecologically. |
| Entanglement | Entanglements occur when beings “emerge through and as part of their entangled intra-relating” (Barad, 2007, ix). Humans are intrinsically entangled with all beings and come to matter “through the world’s iterative intra-activity – its performativity.” (Wolfstone, Becoming Ecocentric, 2016, p.14). |
| Epistemology | under construction |
| Essentialism | under construction |
| Eurocentrism | under construction |
| Food security | under construction |
| Food sovereignty | in progress |
| Hegemony | under construction |
| Hierarchy | under construction |
| Holistic | An elemental approach to holistic becoming improves on the Western dualistic model of holism in which body, mind and spirit are separate domains. A holistic onto-epistemology is indicated by narrators’ learning activities that intra-act with the five elements – the dynamisms of cognition (Air), embodiment (Earth), relationality (Water), creativity (Fire) and transpersonal experience (Space) (Wolfstone, Becomiing Ecocentric, 2016, p.33). |
| Ideology | under construction |
| Imaginary | in progress |
| Imagination as a Way of Knowing | The exercise of imagination leads to knowledge because it contributes to meaning and opens the mind to insight (Barfield, p.171). It is involved in abstraction and symbol-making. For Barfield, language is related to nature; it is metaphorical and mythical because it reflects the true character of the universe (Myers, 1998, p.7-8). Jung’s psychological interpretation of mythology as archetypes or metaphors experienced through the collective unconscious makes a significant contribution to Barfield’s notion of participation through imagination (Barfield, p.154). Jung refers to active imagination as a method of introspection for observing the stream of interior images by uncritically focusing attention on some impressive but unintelligible dream image, or on a spontaneous visual impression, and observes or interacts with the changes taking place in it (Wolfstone, Becoming Ecocentric, 2016, p.12). |
| Indigeneity | under construction |
| Indigenous knowledges | under construction |
| Informal Learning | My definition emerged from my Becoming Ecocentric study and differs from the OECD definition: Informal learning is intentional, but it is less organized, less structured and more experiential than nonformal learning; it may include self-directed, learner-centred and social learning activities that occur at multiple sites in the family, workplace and community (EUROSTAT cited by Werquin, 2007). (Wolfstone, Becoming Ecocentric, 2016, p.33). |
| Intentional | See Agency |
| Intra-active becoming, intra-action | Intra-action, a neologism introduced by Barad, challenges dualism. Intra-action contrasts with ‘interaction’, which assumes that there are separate individual agencies that precede their interaction and are constantly differentiating. Phenomena are not collections of humans and nonhumans; they are the condition of possibility of all beings, not merely as concepts, but in their materiality (Wolfstone, Becoming Ecocentric, 2016, p.14). See Foundations. |
| Matriarchy | “A social system in which the dominant authority is held by women”. M.Gimbutas. A social order where women are at the centre but do not subjugate men. In matriarchies, the focus shifts from sovereignty to archetype. Peggy Reeves Sanday. Heidi Goettner-Abendroth distinguishes matriarchy from patriarchy: In patriarchal societies, all social spheres are strictly separated and isolated in various institutions. That in turn creates elite groups and serves to enforce power interests. The result is domination and oppression. |
| Matricentric | under construction |
| Matriculture | Matriculture refers to cultural traditions that valorize natality, in its literal and metaphoric meanings, and elevate mothering for its creative, spiritual, affective, educational and judicial contributions to cultural continuity (Wolfstone, 2014). Matriculture does not presume the subordination of men, but rather a partnership between the sexes, and the expected division of labour determined by gender (Passman, 1993, p.185). Women’s role as carriers of the culture is highly valued. The scholarly evidence is mounting that matriculture preceded patriarchy, however it was not a universalism. See also Foundations. |
| Matrilineal | A social organization in which ancestral descent and inheritance is traced through the mother line. Women are thus honoured but do not subjugate men. |
| Matrilocal | Having the home territory of a matrilineal kin group |
| Matristic | Pertaining to the mother in a spectrum that includes matriarchy, matrilineal, matrifocal and egalitarian. (J.Marler) |
| metaphor | In progress |
| Monoculture | In progress. Refer to Vandana Shiva and Luisa Maffi |
| Natality | Natality (n. from Latin natalis; adj. natal) means ‘pertaining to one’s birth’ or ‘native’ in reference to a place. Related words are native, nativity. (Canadian Oxford Dictionary). Synonyms: vitality, aliveness, animate, continuous birth. Refer to Foundations |
| naturecultures | under construction |
| Necrophilia | Necrophilia (n. from Greek nekro – corpse; -philia – loving ) means morbid and erotic attraction to death or corpses. (Canadian Oxford Dictionary) |
| Neocolonialism | under construction |
| Nonduality | under construction How can the divine Oneness be seen? In beautiful forms, breathtaking wonders, awe-inspiring miracles? The Tao is not obliged to present itself in this way. If you are willing to be lived by it, you will see it everywhere, even in the most — Lao Tsu |
| Onto-epistemology | under construction |
| Paradigm | under construction |
| Patriarchy | A form of ranked social organization in which male is the supreme authority in the private (family) and public (community, culture, government) spheres. It usually involves a patrilineal structure where goods and status pass through the father line. The Greek root arkhō means rule and thus emphasizes authority. Androcentric and masculinist are related terms which focus on male gender rather than paternal authority, and generally have phallocentric meanings. |
| Patrilineal | A social organization in which ancestral descent and inheritance is traced through the father line. |
| Patrilocal | under construction |
| Patristic | under construction |
| political | under construction |
| Postcolonial feminism | under construction |
| Postcolonial theory | under construction |
| Postmodernity | under construction |
| Praxis | Praxis is an iterative practise of reflection, critique, political action and pedagogy with a goal of social transformation. It is the process by which a theory, lesson, or skill is enacted, practiced, embodied, or realised. Praxis may also refer to the act of engaging, applying, exercising, realizing, or practicing ideas. Praxis is a recurrent topic in the field of philosophy, particularly Critical Theory. |
| Regeneration | in progress |
| Relationality | in progress |
| Religion | Religion emerges from a culture’s embodied relationship to nature and gives institutional form to the cosmological ideas that precede religion, and thus constrains the imagination. Today, world religions are transcultural in scope. Religions may retain some shamanic and pagan elements but regulate and formalize tenets of faith through conceptual solidity documented in text, institutionalized ritual, and priestly roles. Note: I do not use ‘religion’ or ‘spiritual’ to describe indigenous cultures whose cosmology and cultural traditions have not been recorded by them in a writing system devised for their language and their culture. Indigenous cultures, prior to the emergence of a ‘religion’, were nondualistic and did not separate the secular and sacred as dualistic tend to do. In indigenous traditions, theism is not required; pantheism or panentheism may exist in combination with animism and shamanism. It is pre-text and pre-religion, precluding documented texts and institutionalized religions, and is thus transmitted through oral tradition and the language of culture: myth, ritual, symbols and signs. |
| Resilience | Resilience is an acquired skill that builds capacity to adapt to the consequences of a catastrophe caused by natural or man-made disaster, including climate change, a terrorist attack, long-term power outage, or similar event. |
| Self-Sufficiency | The ability to supply one’s needs for a commodity, especially food, from one’s own resources. Independence. (Canadian Oxford Dictionary) personal or collective autonomy. Some first nations continue to be self-sufficient, never having given up their traditional ways of hunting and gathering food. |
| Separation | alienation, apathy, estrangement, anxiety, anomie, confusion. |
| Spirituality | under construction |
| States of consciousness | There are several states of consciousness, including sleep, coma and waking. The relationship between the mind and the world can be altered using diverse means to move into an altered states of consciousness (ASC) which Jung called numinous experience. Some altered states occur naturally; some are caused by brain damage and some are induced, at will, through mind altering activities or psychoactive drugs. See table on Brain Activity in States of Consciousness in (Wolfstone, Unitive Experience, 2013, p.49). |
| Strategic essentialism | under construction |
| Subaltern | under construction |
| Sustainability | I do not use this word because it has conflicting meanings related to economics, ecology and human communities. It is complicit with anthropocentrism. |
| Symbology | In progress. See also imaginary. |
| Theology | under construction |
| Transformation learning | under construction |
| Transgressive | under construction |
| Transpersonal | Jung used the term ‘numinous’ to describe nondual, unitive experience in which we let go of ego to engage with our unconscious. Jung regarded numinous experience as fundamental to understanding the individuation process because it is associated with archetypes. Imagination is essential to unitive experience in order to work with the collective unconscious. Gendlin’s philosophy of the implicit is relevant because it explains how metaphors emerge from unitive experience and are carried forward and given form, through language. All natals are capable of numinous or unitive experience – of entering that place of no-space/no-time where we experience At-Oneness with All-that-is. All natals have the neurological capacity to experience nonduality in altered states of consciousness (Winkelman, 2011, p.271ff). |