Abstract
This chapter is the concluding one and reflects on all research findings and themes. It explores what it means to be a good person in relation to nature. Crowther concludes that all groups aim to do good within these landscapes regardless of definitions as to what good is. The motivation to engage with groups and in natural space appears to be due to a desire to belong within a given group and to verify some sense of the self in doing so. This is often to do with subjective ideas of what it means to be a good person. Whether through aiming to understand the intrinsic value of the non-human, aiming to conserve and sustainably manage the landscape, or aiming to better the lives of underprivileged youths, all relationships with nature aim to be good.
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Notes
- 1.
Cocks and Simpson (2015).
- 2.
Cocks and Simpson (2015).
- 3.
Hill Jnr (2006).
- 4.
Hill Jnr (2006: 332).
- 5.
Plumwood (2002).
- 6.
Plumwood (2002: 181).
- 7.
Hill Jnr (2006).
- 8.
Hill Jnr (2006: 333–334).
- 9.
Hill Jnr (2006).
- 10.
Ferre in Attfield (2011).
- 11.
John O’Neill in Attfield (2011).
- 12.
in Attfield (2011).
- 13.
Attfield (2011: 207).
- 14.
Attfield (2011: 37).
- 15.
This is this informant’s real name. I made this decision alongside Helen and Rodica’s husband as it felt more appropriate considering the circumstances.
- 16.
- 17.
This final ceremony closed my relationship with this community (at least as a researcher.) Ethically, as an ethnographer and as a friend, due to the sensitive nature of this material, it did not feel appropriate to critically analyse Rodica’s funeral nor the choices made by her husband. Instead this reflection should stand alone as an open comment regarding this circumstance and its relation to themes within my research. It is also with this realisation that I will refrain from obvious discussions of ritual and ceremonial, acknowledging that as events go, yes indeed death and performative rituals are so closely related to liminality. I will leave that here. I wholeheartedly wish to avoid accusations of ethnographic opportunism in the fate of stumbling upon death and funerary rites within the field, for the sake of my informants as friends and for Rodica’s family. Besides, funerary rites of passage and traditional liminal thresholds are far from what my research thus far has been about. This is better left for elsewhere. Instead I will focus on the funeral as a series of symbols and performative acts representing Rodica’s identity and her relationship with the natural world.
- 18.
Davies and Rumble (2012).
- 19.
Davies and Rumble (2012: 14).
- 20.
Davies and Rumble (2012: 13).
- 21.
Davies and Rumble (2012).
- 22.
Davies and Rumble (2012).
- 23.
(Davies and Rumble (2012: 68).
- 24.
Davies and Rumble (2012).
- 25.
Davies and Rumble (2012: 55).
- 26.
Lifton in Davies and Rumble (2012).
- 27.
A natural burial suggests a desire for independence from ‘the ‘unnatural interference of commercial ventures but an alliance with the organic world.’ Whilst I could not comment on Rodica’s beliefs regarding commercial venture, from what I know of Rodica and due to the circumstance in which we met, I feel most certainly that this kind of reasoning may have occurred to her. I am sure though, entailing many more ontological and spiritual complexities. Of course, losing the opportunity to speak with Rodica, I could never be sure of her motivations, or indeed her husband’s motivations for organising the funeral in the way that they did. This may however suggest, for another researcher, further questions and areas of research that could be developed with regard to wellbeing and self-verification in death for both the deceased and family and friends of the deceased.
- 28.
Adams (2009).
- 29.
Baumeister and Leary (1995).
- 30.
Cocks and Simpson (2015).
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Crowther, R. (2019). Conclusion: Performed Identities and Being a Good Person. In: Wellbeing and Self-Transformation in Natural Landscapes. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97673-0_7
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