Dr Amy Smallwood (PhD Environmental Philosophy 2023, awarded by Lancaster University)
Amy conducted a phenomenological analysis of human relationships with the more-than-human world in the context of outdoor adventure education (OAE). Beginning with a sociocultural analysis and an assumption that OAE pedagogy leads to adversarial relations between humans and the natural world, Amy drew connections between Martin Buber’s philosophy of dialogue with experiences of the natural sublime and Indigenous ontologies to suggest a phenomenon of primary encounters as a way to cultivate human-nature relations that contribute to an ethic of care. This was a theoretical analysis, which utilized phenomenology and was then both tested and illustrated through the use of autoethnography. Amy hope this research will inform place-inclusive pedagogy with new onto-epistemological structures that encourage positive human-nature relations.
Thesis title: Primary Encounters: towards a conceptual model of place relations in outdoor adventure education
Lead supervisor: Emeritus Professor Chris Loynes
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