Collective mindfulness: Somatic attention to group and self in meditation practice in Israel

Mindfulness is commonly portrayed as a solitary practice in which one turns attention inward to notice feelings, thoughts and sensations that arise in the mind and body. Yet the training and practice of mindfulness often take place in a group setting, indicating that the process of turning inward is dependent on an intersubjective space. Based on an extended ethnography of Israelis who train in body-based mindfulness in the context of Vipassana meditation practice, we analyze collective mindfulness spaces, including group sittings, virtual group sittings and the use of mindfulness applications. We show that mindfulness offers a unique kind of togetherness. It opposes direct social engagement while still offering a supportive social space where others move from an audience to bodily co-dwellers. We track the tensions in replicating this form of togetherness in virtual settings, where, paradoxically, the physical distance ends up exposing people's social identities while still limiting embodied synchronization. We illustrate how the social spaces of mindfulness serve as liminoid sanctuaries beyond everyday social-interactive life, providing relief from the political and economic stress in which Israelis live.     

Stakeholder engagement with environmental decision support systems: The perspective of end users

Environmental decision support systems (EDSS) are designed to assist natural resource managers and stakeholders to assess problems and select options for change. EDSS that combine community engagement in developing future scenarios with computer‐based land use planning and modelling tools are widely used internationally. However, these EDSS are often not used after the research and development phase. To best understand why the EDSS are not being used in the long term, the end users of the EDSS should be consulted—a perspective that is lacking in the literature. The research reported here presents the perspectives of stakeholders involved in a community climate change adaptation project in western Canada. Evidence from the community suggests that this project was successful in instigating change. However, the EDSS was not used after the project's end. Our findings indicate that, from the end users’ perspective, the project could have had much greater and sustained success had there been ongoing engagement and communication with them, particularly in the form of continued support for the use of EDSS after the development project.