| The study explores Arne Naess' "ecological self" through women's accounts for their own and their ancestors' experiences of nature. Having two interconnected foci which examine the self in ecological context and in historical context, this study proposes "narrative" as a medium by which we bring our ecological experiences to integration with the self and evoke our ecological sensitivities. This study employs a feminist narrative approach in which women's experiences of nature are investigated. Seven women who or whose ancestors experienced a form of dislocation and/or relocation were interviewed, and narrative analysis is employed to examine their views of nature, ways by which they relate to or distance themselves from nature.;This study shows that bringing history, ancestry, and the communal past into discussions of human-nature relationships can bring ecological, social, psychological, spiritual, and other aspects of human experiences together. In this sense, a historically situated ecological self should be understood as a meaningfully configured self that takes the past into consideration, rather than being seen as one's relationships with nature placed in a short, static time frame. The use of narratives allows us to see diversities in people's ways of relating to nature and complexities and conflicts that reside in one's ecological self. Lastly, exhibiting women's ecological sensitivities and insights, this study reveals contributions that women's narratives make to better understanding of an ecological self and all-sided views of human-nature relationships. |
