Tweets from the treetop - an ethnographic inquiry concerning the relationship between humans and nature among German climate activists.
by Julian Imort
Abstract
Nature has always been an elastic and ambivalent concept, which has been able to unfold its power especially when it is juxtaposed to the concept of human culture. In the Anthropocene, this separation no longer works, and German climate activists therefore prefer to use concepts and ideas of indigenous groups to promote an epistemological decolonization in combination with embodied activism. Through full bodily engagement and painful, but also euphoric moments and feelings, new philosophies and utopias are designed that no longer put humans and their consciousness in the center of the world. Beyond Eurocentric philosophies and academic hubris, the trees and birds begin to speak for themselves. Through tweets from the treetop, the forest squatters were able to amplify such voices in various forms: through posts sent from treetops via the internet platform Twitter, through people imitating real birds, and through people communicating consciously with the help of bird voices.Building on various theories of embodiment, indigenous ontologies, and Latour's idea of the "terrestrial," this paper explores non-(only)human agency in a German mixed forest and answers the research question: How does the relationship between humans and nature change through the embodied experience of climate activism at Extinction Rebellion and in the Dannenröder Forest?
Project Description
Due to my personal connection to nature, I decided to become a climate activist in early 2020, right at the start of the Covid 19 pandemic. In many conversations with other activists, I noticed that despite the focus on rationalistic, empirical science, there were often references to holistic mythologies and ontologies that transcended the separation between individual life and abstract knowledge, as well as rationality and emotionality. In the Dannenröder forest, which was to be cut down due to the new construction of the highway A49 and was then occupied by over 200 activists with tree houses, there were also banners with the inscription "We are not defending nature, we are nature, defending itself." It was signed by "pachamama," the Quechua deity that translates as "mother earth." This raised many questions for me: what is the relationship between human agency and nature? What does it mean to identify with nature within the dualistic separation of human and nature? How would nature have to be conceived in order to ascribe to it the agency of painting a banner? What does it mean for humans not to be separate from nature? And is this the same objectively tangible nature that (natural) scientists deal with? Such questions prompted me to spend two weeks in the Dannenröder Forest following my ethnographic research at ten protests of the environmental protection movement "Extinction Rebellion" and to continue it there with regard to the material reality of life of the activists and their bodily experiences. In doing so, I conducted semi-structured interviews in the forest in addition to my intensive participation and participant observation.About Me
I studied philosophy and social and cultural anthropology in Göttingen and Heidelberg. I have always been inspired by profound worldviews that question the status quo in a system based on endless economic growth. For this, I have researched postcolonial art in Ghana, the Bolivian diaspora in Spain, and now that the familiar has become foreign, I am exploring transculturally inspired alternative life concepts in Germany. After working in the Berlin start-up scene, I now work as a writer and am looking forward to eventually become a full-time anthropologist again.Summary of Findings
The evaluation of the results is divided into two steps:-
The resolution of body-mind dualism through embodied activism takes shape in a three-step process:
- Overpowerment: The body, fatigued by the Western lifestyle, comes back into motion and is at first often felt negatively (cold, lack of sleep, caffeine deprivation, lack of comfort). Over time, an improved mind-body connection develops that is not present in conventional lifestyles.
- Transcendence: "Nature" is experienced as part of the self with all senses and understood holistically. The preceding pain is appreciated as an important psychosomatic signal and actively changed. People begin to live more and more in the moment. Other animals and plants are perceived as independent subjects instead of objects that now have a direct influence on the activists
- Reconfiguration: People shed their doubts about their own bodies, physical and psychological suffering, as well as their branded clothes. The capitalist bodies were discarded in the forest. Instead of wanting to live purely in the so-called "nature", the waste of capitalism was creatively recycled and functionally built into tree houses.
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New utopias and life philosophies are developed based on the closure of the mind-body gap
- Nature 2.0 instead of "back to the roots": Returning to nature is seen as a step into the future rather than a step back. Instead of delimiting or glorifying nature, it is incorporated into technological developments. The Internet would also be kind of a forest in which everything is networked; humans would have created it because they actually long for the forest, according to one informant.
- Natural culture instead of culture vs. nature: Many informants perceived the term "culture" to be just as critical and misleading as its apparent counterpart. Above all, "our culture" is inextricably linked to planetary and human exploitation, which is why there were frequent exchanges about alternative, mostly indigenous ways of life.
- De-secularization, but critical of religion: Spirituality and fiction are enormously important for living holistically, for comprehending complex physical processes even at an accessible meta-level, and for crafting long-lasting stories that not only spark creativity but also reveal new ways of living.