ChildEmp · Understanding children's empathy: an ethnographic study among the indigenous Runa of the Ecuadorian Amazon

Understanding children's empathy: an ethnographic study among the indigenous Runa of the Ecuadorian Amazon

At this time of the Anthropocene, debates about how we should positively transform our relationships with the environment and nonhuman beings have come to the forefront of both civil society and social theory.Such debates have often been framed in terms of empathy, which is understood as an individual and group capacity for understanding and sharing the feelings and perspectives of others, including nonhumans. Recently, a growing number of social theorists have argued that it is precisely Western society’s lack of empathy with nonhumans which underpins the contemporary environmental crisis. In particular, the question of how one learns to feel empathy towards the environment and the beings which inhabit it has been identified as a key issue to address in order to face the current environmental crisis. Building upon contemporary interdisciplinary research on empathy, the proposed project aims to understand how an empathetic attitude towards nonhuman entities is gradually learnt during childhood. More specifically, it investigates how indigenous children in the Ecuadorian Amazon learn to be empathetic with nonhuman beings. Amazonian indigenous societies are known in the anthropological literature for engaging in empathetic relationships with a vast array of nonhuman beings, including trees, rivers and other inanimate entities. Connecting the various interdisciplinary approaches to empathy and the anthropological literature on Amazonian human-nonhuman relationships, the proposed project aims to fill this important gap by investigating how indigenous children in the Ecuadorian Amazon become empathetic towards nonhumans through early intersubjective processes of learning and material interactions. It raises larger philosophical and anthropological questions of how empathy is culturally acquired, manifested and actively learnt during childhood. With a focus on the process of learning empathy, this project is a particularly timely endeavour as it may provide an alternative model for interacting with nature, which could help us face the challenges of the current environmental crisis. Extending on my previous research among indigenous Runa people of the Ecuadorian Amazon, the main objective of this research is understand how empathy towards nonhumans is gradually learnt during childhood. This overall aim can be broken down into other objectives: 1. To explore how children learn to perceive others as human-like in a setting which is inductive to such learning. The following questions will guide my methodology: How is perception shaped by intersubjective encounters with nonhumans? In such interactions, which phenomenal aspects are highlighted, which are downplayed? How do adults emphasise particular characteristics of nonhumans? What sensorial faculties are deployed by children in the recognition of human-like features? 2. To explore children’s perception and understanding of personhood and intentionality (including emotions and other dispositions). In particular I will focus on the following issues: What are the Runa children’s conceptions of personhood? How do Runa children understand ‘intentionality’? Do children’s views differ from adults’? 3. To understand the nature of ‘empathy’ among indigenous Runa people and compare it with Western ideas of empathy. The project was concluded in January 2021. Outputs of the project included: 1) Publications (including an edited volume forthcoming with Routledge) 2) Dissemination activities (workshops, organisation of panels at major disciplinary conferences) 3) Ongoing contribution to the writing of a report on indigenous schooling and learning in Ecuador.

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