NATURE, SELF, AND BEING IN THE WORLD Revealing a flourishing ethics in landscape architecture through poignant landscape experiences Van Thi Diep A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy PhD in Environmental Studies York University Toronto, Ontario February 2021 © Van Thi Diep, 2021 Abstract Poignant landscapes are gateways to our existential belongingness because they allow us to be moved by the world. Landscape architects have the potential to shape the world’s landscapes, as settings for poignant life experiences, and yet, an issue lies in the praxis of the profession. Contemporary landscape architecture and environmental ethics, as part of contemporary society, are enmeshed in binary narratives. Because interpretations of landscapes are inseparable from notions of nature, which hermeneutically carry existential stories of human-world relationships, when an enigmatic natural world was abandoned for the objectivity of biology and space, the worldview of landscapes also split into binary narratives of human versus nature, sacred versus profane, and poetic versus practical. Moreover, with the expansion of secularism and nondualist cosmologies such as Daoism and Indigenous teachings into the Western world, polarised moral judgements, which are loosely based on past Christian narratives, become paradoxical and unsupportive towards resolving contemporary social and ecological disputes. Therefore, this project argues for an approach to ethics based on the idea of flourishing, which sees morality as relational and that ethical individuals make autonomous choices to flourish within a world of social and ecological systems. To return to the roots of “being,” this research asks landscape architects what a flourishing life and a flourishing environment really means to them. Poignant experiences with landscapes are used to provoke memory and awareness of being in the world and the sense of connectivity with other existences in the human, ecological, or spiritual worlds. Through the analysis of professional codes and mandates, a survey of landscape architects, and interviews with flourishing landscape architects, the research explores how the “landscape architect,” as a professional identity and as an archetype in the collective consciousness, is interpreted, performed, and communicated in landscape architecture. A hermeneutic approach was used to unravel concepts of nature, landscape, experience, ii poignancy, and ethical choice-making. The analysis reveals that a reflexive process that is simultaneously personal and collective can increase experiential awareness, expand horizons for meanings, and create opportunities for shifting paradigms essential to achieving a sense of human belongingness in the world. iii Dedication To all the poignant landscapes that you and I have witnessed, the ancestors who have shaped those lands, and the spirit that lives within them. iv Acknowledgements Real life stories and fairy tales both progress by having their characters encounter friends and foe, supporters and challengers. Similarly, plays and movies have ensemble casts. I’d like to think of my dissertation as a story without antagonists but one where roadblocks have appeared intermittently to challenge me. Frankly, I had at one point in my PhD journey thought that the real project I was working on was me and not the research. But whether this journey was part of my life story or part of a research assignment, the journey is still one created from the support of contributors. This project is indebted to all those who have played a role. First, I would like to acknowledge my dissertation committee: my supervisor Laura Taylor, for keeping me grounded with practical advice, understanding me in moments when I needed understanding, and encouraging me to own my story; Peter Timmerman, for supporting my cryptic thinking while averting me from being trapped in my own obstructive thoughts; Martin Holland, for his encouragement, support, and enthusiasm in the “goodness” of landscape architecture; and George Kapelos, for his constructive comments during the completion of my comprehensive exams. At the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change (previously Environmental Studies), I am also grateful for Liette Gilbert, who was always available to help as the Graduate Program Director; Anna Zalik, as the former PhD coordinator and instructor for ENVS 8102b Research Design (a helpful course for starting my dissertation proposal); and Joanna Chin, fellow doctoral student, who introduced me to the ethic of flourishing. Beyond my home faculty, I am grateful to Jay Goulding from the Department of Social Sciences at York for establishing my interest in Heideggerian phenomenology and Daoism. As a former teaching assistant to Professor Goulding, I am especially appreciative of his trust to give his teaching assistants the liberty to explore and instruct phenomenology in ways that stimulated our v own thinking. In a similar manner, I am fortunate to have met Andy Fisher and participated in his Ecopsychology Training Course. When I felt lost at sea in our world’s inexplicable anguish, I felt relief in Andy’s teachings as if they were the shore that I had been looking for. I learned in the last few years that creating community starts by sharing as an individual. As such, I am grateful for the opportunities of community-building through the enriching discussions with my SOSC 1000 teaching assistant colleagues and learning how to “hold space” as an empathetic practice with fellow participants from my ecopsychology training. If I were to choose one highlight from my dissertation process, I would choose to acknowledge the value of conducting interviews. The interviewing experience was meaningful, inspirational, and attitude-changing for me in both professional and personal ways. In many cases, participants spent time before and after their interviews to further discuss my project and give me encouragement. In rare moments during the interviews, I even felt a sense of belongingness: even though participants shared perspectives that differed from mine at the detailed level, at a meta-level, we were communicating as members of a common humanity. For rhetorical reasons, I have decided to keep participants anonymous in the document, but for those participants who have waived their anonymity, I would like to sincerely offer my acknowledgements here: Bob Allsopp, Virginia Burt, Colleen Mercer Clarke, Real Eguchi, Chris Grosset, John Hillier, Michelle Lazar, Fung Lee, Jim Melvin, Raquel Peñalosa, Marc Ryan, Dennis Alan Winters, Carolyn Woodland and one anonymous landscape architect, thank you for making this project possible. In addition to the people who supported this project, I would also like to acknowledge the organisations and circumstances that assisted my progress. When I first ventured into this doctoral journey, I had left a stable job as a landscape architect to join a financially and professionally precarious career as a PhD student. I consider my decision at the time as my first real leap of faith. Although I did not plan for financial miracles, support always presented itself to me when I needed vi it. I am grateful for receiving funding in the form of the Ontario Graduate Scholarship (OGS), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Canada Graduate Scholarship, and the Landscape Architecture Canada Foundation (LACF) Grant Award. Although the funds were invaluable, in receiving the awards, I am also reminded that there is an invisible and magical realm to the world that I cannot see. So, as I again feel apprehensive about the future, I tell myself that if a venture has a life of its own, and wants to be born into our world, the world will bless it into being. vii Table of Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................................................ ii Dedication ........................................................................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................................ v Table of Contents ............................................................................................................................................ viii List of Abbreviations ........................................................................................................................................ ix List of Tables ....................................................................................................................................................... x List of Figures .................................................................................................................................................... xi 1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................................................... 1 2 The Origins of a Personal Worldview: A Short Memoir ........................................................................ 36 3 The Idea of Landscape: The Perpetual Dilemma of Nature-Culture ................................................... 47 4 Poignant Experiences: Finding Belongingness in Profound Encounters and in the Everyday ........ 85 5 Flourishing