Emotional Responses to Disconnection
““I’m not rooted in this place/community enough; my focus is on the place where I’m “from” but I’m unable to make change there; I want to make change here but don’t have the same sense of connection.””
A sense of connection to place is incredibly important in our work for justice. Our physical contexts shape our understanding of culture, social interaction, and most importantly, our sense of what needs to change in order to have a lasting impact on the world. So what do we do when we feel disconnected to our physical location?
Balm of Ecological Location
The first balm I have to offer for this anxiety is an affirmation that it’s okay to feel like your justice work is rooted in a specific physical context! Drawing on a framework of human relationship to environments, we can lean into the importance of place in creating personal meaning and use this as a jumping-off point for broadening our understanding of the “world” in which we work to make change.
Daniel Spencer’s work around “ecological location” invites us to a new understanding of how beings relate to their physical environments. Through this work, Spencer develops a framework of human understanding of the world (what he calls “human epistemologies”) that is directly impacted by physical location; “ecological location,” he writes, “is an ecocentric term that recognizes that human epistemologies…are also shaped by our relationship with the land and other creatures in our broader biotic environment.” He explains this relationship as a “complex interplay between the sensory stimulation [the natural environment] provides, our individual temperament and purpose, and the cultural forces that provide meaning at a particular time.” Teasing out the ramifications for individuals, we can look to this framework for confirmation that one’s social/cultural/political/etc. understanding of the world is directly shaped by their ecological location.
Relating back to the discussion of justice work, this perspective once again offers us permission to begin our work “at home.” By recognizing that our worldview is inherently affected by our ecological/physical environments, we can accept that our work towards justice will always be rooted in a specific understanding of place and that we may feel more “connected” to working in a specific ecological location or context - and that’s okay! We are called to work for liberation everywhere, but through this framework, we are also called to affirm the importance of specific ecological locations in our work.
Balm of “Holistic Earth”
The second balm I offer for anxieties around disconnection invites us into a broader understanding of ecological location and “place.” Building on a framework developed by a group of Native American theologians, this perspective pushes us to think more holistically about ecological context, and allows us a chance to find connection to a larger sense of “place.”
This section introduces a Native American perspective, drawing on frameworks developed by Native theologians through their work to marry several Christian and Indigenous approaches to spiritual practice. As it relates to space specifically, these authors underscore the importance of place to Native worldviews, writing that “Indian notions of creation and Indian existence are deeply rooted in our attachment to the land and to specific territories in particular.” Acknowledging this importance, the Native theologians also complicate their spatial-relational framework by adding in a concept of “wholeness” that rejects the “oppositional” nature of differences and instead unites them under “necessary reciprocity.”
When we unite these two frameworks, we can begin to see a view of ecological location that has both an actual physical location and is part of a larger ecological “whole” - the Earth. Like Spencer, the Native theologians affirm our connection to a specific place, but also call us to remember that all beings share a common ecological location - “the earth which lies beneath our feet, the earth who is, after all, the true mother of each of us and of all Creation.”
So how do we apply this understanding to our anxieties around disconnection? As with Spencer’s frameworks, the spatial perspectives offered by these Native theologians first affirm the reality of personal connection to a specific place, but also push us to broaden our understanding of “place” and think more in terms of “Earth.” As it relates to disconnection from location, then, these frameworks offer us a different way to connect to our sense of place, and allow us to tap into potential new connections through a broader understanding of ecological location.
Balm of Relatedness
As a final balm to anxieties around disconnection, I’d like to briefly touch on the interpersonal dimension of feelings of disconnectedness and isolation. While the previous sections offered new ways of understanding physical connection, this section will draw on Gebara’s work around relatedness to offer insights into anxieties of interpersonal disconnection.
As outlined in the section on Anxieties around Scale, Gebara’s framework draws us into an understanding of personhood as being inherently interrelational; she reminds us that the definition of “person” first affirms the “collective existence” of life, the primary facet of which is “relatedness.” More than just creating the conditions for relationship, however, this perspective insists that all things are connected - we are all related, whether we choose to be or not.
As we think about the our social justice movement and our anxieties around disconnection, then, this perspective opens up a new way of thinking about our “connections,” and troubles the idea that any individual could actually exist in a state of disconnection - even in the climate movement. Indeed, this framework offers us a massive source of connection that exists all around us! How cool! When we feel anxiety around disconnection from others in our movement, then, we can return to this perspective of relationship, and hopefully find new ways of connecting and relating to those in our communities, our movements, and the world as a whole.