Abstract

OCHOA-MANJARRES, María Teresa. Environmental language: a culture of healthcare. Rev. colomb. soc. [online]. 2019, vol.42, n.1, pp.117-134. ISSN 0120-159X.  https://doi.org/10.15446/rcs.v42n1.72386.

The relationship between health and environment has been explored from the perspective of both ancient and new traditions of thought. This article specifically examines the modern forms of thought underlying the relationship between health and environment, using hermeneutics as the method to inquire into the conception of reality of modern Western reason, which permeates the theories and concepts expressed in practices within ecosystems and the field of human health.

The most adequate scenario to show the changes in the relation between culture and nature was selected on the basis of empirical and conceptual sources drawn from the broad spectrum of scientific publications and other types of knowledge. That selection was guided by historical criteria, as well as by diverse disciplinary perspectives that include both terms of the relation.

Ontological hermeneutics reinserts the human being in nature and makes it possible to reinterpret the relationship between health and environment as indivisible, in order to contrast it with the categories of fragmented understanding typical of Western reason. This alternative and relational understanding identifies in health the symbolism that creates and nurtures relations of reciprocity and solidarity, taking into account the affective aspects of everyday life and the configuration of the environment as a privileged reality within the set of possibilities that exalt life and care.

Language constitutes us as what we are and creates relations that connect our inner self with other persons and with ecosystems, in order to overcome the dualism inherited from two great opposite orders: culture and nature. Thus, a symbolic or relational reason facilitates the understanding of complexity and makes it possible to orient our own interpretation of the relation between health and environment toward the future, in order to solve the environmental crisis and prevent its repetition.

Keywords : culture; environment; health; language; nature; symbolism.

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