Therapeutic landscapes of stillness: creating affective sanctuary through practices of cocooning and immersing

Abstract

This paper explores therapeutic stillness as a relation between body and landscape, which unfolds through interactions with the environment that are embodied, encultured and increasingly technologized. I consider how stillness is produced, narrated, valued and experienced in relation to what the health geographical literature terms ‘therapeutic landscapes’, referring to places that are associated with wellbeing. Stillness, as concept, practice and experience, encompasses a rich set of cultural meanings that have consequences for relations with, and valorizations of, landscape, that are reflected in contemporary therapeutic geographies. I introduce and elaborate on what I call ‘cocooning’ and ‘immersive’ modes of stillness and outline a research agenda on stillness within work on wellbeing and environment. Cocooning and immersing can be understood as two variant alignments between body and place, which describe the modulation of bodily capacities and emotions in productions of affective sanctuary through stillness. Attention to practices of cocooning and immersing reveals the cultural narratives that intersect with the valorization and cultivation of green and blue spaces as therapeutic landscapes and emphasizes the affective and sensory dimensions of experiencing wellbeing within such landscapes.