Connecting with Nature through Hands, Heart and Brain

What does it mean to develop a meaningful connection with nature—not through crisis or policy, but through everyday environmental engagement?

Sustainability discourse foregrounds activism and disaster response, yet the human-nature relationships enacted by ordinary people in daily life remain empirically underexplored. Drawing on participant observation, video-recorded fieldwork, and ethnographic interviews with environmental volunteers in Luxembourg, Zhang applies constructivist Grounded Theory Methods to examine how connections with nature are initiated and deepened. The analysis identifies three interrelated dimensions—embodied experience, intellectual engagement, and emotional resonance—through which participants recognize nature's agency and articulate a human-inclusive notion of naturalness. These findings complicate instrumental framings of nature, advancing a relational perspective and offering empirical grounding to the theory of relational values.

A rigorous, closely observed contribution to environmental sociology, this book bridges conceptual debate and lived experience, with implications for both theory and practice.