The epistemological possibilities of love: towards relational and ecological healing

This thesis theorizes that the interlinked crises of wounded relationality and environmental degradation are exacerbated by the marginalization of deeply relational epistemologies in the formal education integral to Modern Western culture. Based on this theorizing, this work examines the epistemological possibilities of love, including non-anthropocentric ecological love as defined in the final chapter. The thesis recommends numerous pedagogic activities for healing relational epistemologies, from selected love and ecofiction reading, to wild pedagogies activities, to playful ecolinguistic revisions, to expanded ecocritical storytelling. Secondary research for this thesis derives from interdisciplinary fields and includes: attachment theory; biopsychosocial dimensions of wellbeing; neurobiology of reading; ecolinguistics; ecocriticism; psi research; and plant, animal, and quantum science. Additionally, the author uses her experiences as a college English instructor, as a mother, as a child, and as a near-death experiencer to provide examples of eco-anxiety, intuitive interspecies communication, and transrational knowing, enabled through relational epistemologies. This thesis project explores love epistemologies and the transformative force of love through intuitive interspecies fieldwork with plant, animal, and other more-than-humans with a collaborative, emergent eco-love methodology. This fieldwork suggests that human love wounds may be the primary source of ecological degradation. Understanding and ameliorating this problem requires redefining love from an ecological rather than anthropocentric perspective. Ultimately, love epistemologies could enable collaborative transrational knowledges, leading toward increased personal, humanitarian, and ecological healing.