Walking the Land
In November 2024, I focused on an eco-philosophy exercise called “Walking the land”. It consists in immersing yourself in the care-taking of a piece of land, th us experiencing the land’s possibilities, needs and resistances. With time, you come to view yourself primarily as a caretaker of nature. Now… A month was too short to uncover all aspects of this exercise, but I have a few remarks already. The practice is very intriguing, but I found it interestingly difficult to access. Freya Mathews’ article “ ‘Walking the Land’: an Alternative to Discourse as a Path to Ecological Consciousness and Peace” 1 tackles a fascinating problem: environmental philosophers have debunked the anthropocentric ideology that underpins the systematic exploitation and destruction of nature, yet this has not resulted in society shifting towards ecological consciousness. As the article explains , this state of affair s can be explained by “historical materialism”: it is the mode...