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This dissertation argues that there is a set of assumptions--or a picture, in Wittgenstein's language--that influences our thinking about who we are as human beings and our relationships to the rest of the world. These assumptions have their origins in Cartesianism and function as unrecognized, unacknowledged foundations on which all of the rest of our thinking and acting takes place. My argument is that these assumptions are deeply problematic and that we need to both examine the impact of those assumptions and beginning building alternative perspectives. I draw primarily from scholars who build upon a Wittgensteinian perspective that draws upon the Philosophical investigations, On certainty, and other volumes of Wittgenstein's work that have been published since the Philosophical Investigations. These scholars include Taylor (2007), Williams (2002), Mulhall (2007), Canfield (2004, 2007), Moyal-Sharrock (2004), Travis (2006, 2007), Schatzki (1996, 2001), and Stroll (2002, 2004). Of particular interest to me is the inner-outer distinction--or in Taylor's terms, dualist sorting--of Cartesian dualism, whereby all mental processes are contained within individual human minds that are separate and distinct from the rest of the reality. Taylor, Williams, Schatzki, and other Wittgensteinian scholars argue that this assumption continues to be relatively unacknowledged and unchallenged despite a long history of philosophical challenges to the Cartesian perspective. These scholars argue that the inner-outer distinction is deeply mistaken and yet continues to have an impact on contemporary life that is both pervasive and negative. A key part of my approach builds on Taylor's (2007) argument about the connection between ontology and epistemology within the Cartesian picture. Taylor argues that we get to a new picture only by carefully investigating the influences of the Cartesian picture and then building a new perspective out of alternatives to each piece of the Cartesian picture. Canfield (2004) argues similarly, referring to this as a bottom-up approach. In this work, I look at both theoretical and applied issues within the social sciences. I investigate how a few concrete practices play out within specific contexts when considered from an alternative perspective that takes unmediated knowledge and embodied practices (Taylor, 2007), a social conception of mind (Williams, 2002), and a relational ontology (Slife, 2004) as foundational. And finally, I present specific examples drawn from the applied practices of the social sciences with a focus on the delivery of psychological services (including psychology, psychotherapy, and counseling) and the teaching of communication (including writing, speaking, and interpersonal communication). The purpose of these examples is to bring out some of the contradictions and problems that occur because of the unacknowledged assumptions of the Cartesian picture and to show the kinds of solutions that an alternative perspective can provide. My goal is to provide concrete suggestions for thinking and acting within the context of particular practices using psychotherapy and teaching as the primary sources for examples. / text

The purpose of this study lies in investigating the embodied learning of applied aesthetics in our sense of balance in the educational space and how it can contribute to change one of a present major public health related problem, the problem of sedentary behaviour in school and society. The investigation is not an effect study, but aims to question our sensorial cultural practice of applied aesthetics, by looking at how we use our ability to balance in the educational space.  Introducing and including elements from the field of art, the aesthetics field of knowledge and life science, the question of acknowledging embodied learning is explored mainly in the sensorial cultural praxis of our ability to balance. Embodied praxis is represented by the Alexander Technique and Elsa Gindler’s concept, with relation to modern neuromechanics. An educational view of knowledge that unilaterally enhances and rewards abstraction as well as theoretical thinking, by validating matrices and merit points, creates unbalance. Treating this unbalance solely with physical exercises enhances the conflict of how to use learning time in school and seems not to lead to a solution. By seeing the educational space as a space of embodied practice the investigation is built around participants’ sense of balance in embodied learning during a school day. The established sensorial cultural practice of how we are using our sense of balance in movement responses is observed during a school day and in a complementary inquiry explored and discussed with the children. Also the time of sitting is measured. The qualitative analysis or reading in this research of embodied learning is done by analysing directions or pointing in poise in momentum for finding inclusive or exclusive corresponsive sensorial tendencies in relation to sensorial cultural practice, including individual, social and regulative aspects. The minor quantitative part in this investigation is looking at the time spent sitting during the school day in the given conditions for defining the pupils’ sedimentary behaviour. The found embodied learning was not noticably acknowledged and not commented by the teacher.  The learning sessions were varying in space, form and in their content. In spite of the attempt of the teacher to create moveability, the children were sitting 54%  or more of the day in school. Inclusive dynamic responsiveness gave ability to balance and promoted embodied learning. Isolated or excluded responsiveness did not noticably engage the sense of balance and did not promote embodied learning. It resulted into pointing or directing downwards and leaning forward, backward or inwards into supportive furniture in accordance with gravitation. The study finds that inclusive responsiveness increases aligned balancing in poise in momentum. In its conclusion the study recognizes the value and effect of physical activity, but argues that moving to be healthy is not effectively changing sedentary behaviour. It argues instead for embodied health sufficient moving on a general sensorial level.  To be able to use our sense of balance as function of intelligence, we still need to increase acknowledgment of our evolutionary inherited skill further. / Studiens syfte ligger i att undersöka möjligheten, att med embodied learning, lärandet genom estetisk sensorisk kommunikation och förtrogen inlärning, finna möjligheter att påverka ett av de stora folkhälsoproblemen, stillasittande beteende i skolan och i samhället. Arbetet utgör ingen effektstudie, utan syftar till att ifrågasätta vår sensoriska kulturella praxis och estetik, genom att undersöka hur vi använder oss av vårt balanssinne i skolan.  En pedagogisk syn på kunskap som ensidigt främjar och belönar abstraktion liksom teoretisk konception, genom meritpoäng och bedömningsmatriser, skapar obalans. Att genom enbart fysisk aktivitet försöka lösa denna obalans, förstärker konflikten om hur tiden i skolan ska fördelas och verkar inte leda till en tillfredsställande lösning av problemet.  Studien har en tvärvetenskaplig karaktär, där utbildningsvetenskapliga aspekter, konstnärlig forskning och naturvetenskap först presenteras och sedan inkluderas i frågan om hur embodied learning i relation till vår färdighet att balansera är igenkänd i skolans sensoriska kulturella praxis och estetik. Embodied praxis och dess användning, representerad genom Alexandertekniken och Elsa Gindlers koncept, är sedan närmare diskuterad, samt dess relation till modern neuromekanik. Genom att se skolan som en plats för embodied praxis, estetisk sensorisk praktik och förtrogenhetspraktik, bygger undersökningen på deltagarnas användning av balanssinnet, sett i hållningen i ögonblicket under en skoldag. Etablerad sensorisk kulturell praxis om hur vi använder vår förmåga att vara i balans observeras från ett intersubjektivt perspektiv. Detta kompletteras med samtal och enstaka explorationer, som utgör endast en mindre del i undersökningen. Även tiden för stillasittande mäts.  Den framtagna empirin av embodied learning analyseras kvalitativt. Detta sker genom att analysera riktningar i hållningen i ögonblicket, för att hitta inkluderande eller exkluderande motsvarande sensoriska tendenser i relation till individuell, social och reglerande sensorisk kulturell praxis. Den mindre kvantitativa delen i denna undersökning består av att mäta tiden som eleverna sitter under skoldagen, för att kunna analysera elevernas sedimentära beteende.   Resultaten visar att embodied learning inte var märkbart igenkänd och inte kommenterad av läraren. Undervisningspassen var varierande i rum, form och innehåll. Trots lärarens ihållande försök att skapa rörlighet, satt barnen minst 54 % av skoldagen. Inkluderande dynamisk sensorisk korrespondens resulterade i en väl fungerande funktionell användning av balanssinnet och främjade embodied learning. Isolerande eller uteslutande respons främjade inte den funktionella användningen av balanssinnet eller embodied learning märkbart. Resultatet visar också att elevernas hållningar största delen av tiden, visade riktningar som pekade nedåt, de lutade sig framåt, bakåt eller inåt och sjönk ner i möblerna i enlighet med tyngdlagen. Visade de en inkluderande korrespondens, ökade balanssinnets fungerande i hållningen i ögonblicket. Studien tillstår i sin slutsats att fysisk aktivitet är nödvändig och har effekt, men argumenterar, att röra sig för att vara frisk är inget effektivt sätt för att förändra stillasittande beteende. Resonemanget i studien leder i stället till att vi behöver röra oss generellt på ett införlivat hälsofrämjande sätt. För att kunna använda oss av vårt balanssinne på ett intelligent sätt, behöver vi fortfarande fördjupa förståelsen av vår evolutionärt nedärvda färdighet ytterligare. / <p>This interdisciplinary study in educational science includes elements from the field of art and aesthetics as well as life science.  The investigation is not an effect study. It is about our sensorial cultural use of balance, from the perspective of an embodied practitioner.</p>

Fielding is an ongoing exploration of place-making, spaces of learning and relationship building in formal and informal learning environments. The project is comprised of a series of events and workshops that are embodied, multimodal, olfactory and engagement-focused and a mobile cart that helps to facilitate these happenings both in and out of the formal gallery space. I regard my art practice as pedagogical, a blurring of art and life into intentional ways of being in the world; an experience of sharing practices with others and a form of what is regarded in institutionalized art as social practice. I find art to be a powerful lens through which to see, and I strive to demonstrate how it can be applied in all matters of living. The practices of making enable me to contribute towards a more equitable, care-ful, empathic, connected and beautiful earth.