KEYNOTE: An Ecopsychology of Rewilding, Interaction, and Relationality by Peter Kahn Jr.

Описание: Numinous Earth: Ecopsychology at the Edge
Conference at California Institute of Integral Studies
East-West Psychology Department
April 17-18, 2025

An Ecopsychology of Rewilding, Interaction, and Relationality:
Toward a Renewed Human Consciousness
by Peter Kahn Jr.

One root problem of our world today is that too many people see
themselves as dominating other groups of people and dominating nature.
Another root problem is what I've characterized as Environmental
Generational Amnesia (EGA): the idea that each of us constructs our sense
of environmental normality based on the natural world we encounter in
childhood. Yet, as environmental degradation worsens with each
generation, each new generation perceives this diminished world as
normal—unaware of what has been lost. EGA thus offers a psychological
explanation for how, generation after generation, we continue destroying
the wellsprings of human existence and barely notice. In this talk, I offer
solutions to both problems. I draw on my research on Interaction
Patterns, which help provide a “nature language” of the human
relationship with the more-than-human world. One feature of Interaction
Patterns is that they exist along a continuum from domestic to wild; and
once one gains familiarity with them, it is easy to design interventions and
systems that deepen and extend people’s interactions with nature, and
with its relatively wild forms, even in urban environments. I then present
several recent cross-cultural studies showing a finding perhaps startling
to some—but probably not to ecopsychologists: children interacting with
relatively wild nature (vs. domestic nature) engaged in less dominating and
more relational behaviors. Extending Thoreau’s vision, perhaps it is
through interacting with Wildness that we not only preserve the world but
transform ourselves—from domination to relationality, and toward a
renewed human consciousness.

Peter H. Kahn, Jr. is Professor in the Department of Psychology and the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, and Director of
the Human Interaction with Nature and Technological Systems (HINTS) Laboratory at the University of Washington. He is also Editor-in-
Chief of the academic journal Ecopsychology. His current research seeks to address three world trends that are powerfully reshaping
human existence: (a) The destruction of large parts of the natural world, (b) unprecedented technological development, both in terms of
its computational sophistication and pervasiveness, and (c) increasing numbers of people living in dense urban environments. He
received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. His publications have appeared in such journals as Science, Developmental
Psychology, Human-Computer Interaction, Environmental Health Perspectives, Child Development, and Journal of Systems Software, as
well as in such proceedings as CHI, HRI, and Ubicomp. His 5 books (all with MIT Press) include Technological Nature: Adaptation and the
Future of Human Life.