Category: Uncategorised

Loneliness and belonging in narrative environment

This week, I read this article which is related to the topic of what emotions and the sense of belonging with the perspective of narrative environment. This article demonstrate the relationship of social well-being/ belonging with the environment, which is helping me for ideas to define the ‘environment’ can make impact or help international students for social-belonging. Below are some of the review for some parts of the reading.

Within the field of student geographies, scholars have commented on the impact of campus environments on student wellbeing, including everyday ‘lifeworlds’, focusing on leisure and living spaces off campus and on campus (Riley, 2010; Holton and Riley, 2013). Some of this research has also focused on the ‘housing biographies’ of students and ‘student identities and homemaking’ (Reynolds, 2020: 7; Holton, 2016; Chow and Healey, 2008; Fincher and Shaw, 2009). Others have focused more specifically on the emotional geographies of students, and the university (especially student accommodation) and students’ experiences of home as ‘transitory, multi-sited and open-ended’ (Holton and Riley, 2016: 640; Worsley et al., 2021; Holton, 2017).

Loneliness and belonging in narrative environments,2023

Factors of belonging for university student: built environment, university infrastructure, and the university’s relationship with its locality.

It is possible to experience loneliness or lack of belonging independently of the other – i.e. feeling lonely without feeling a need to belong as well, and there are instances when loneliness may be desirable and occasionally vital, in supporting opportunities to instigate new forms of belonging, or repairing broken connections (Qualter et al., 2015).

Loneliness and belonging in narrative environments,2023

Emotional experiences of loneliness and belonging are not simply caused by the physical or architectural shape of an environment, but through the way an environment constructs and circulates narratives that offer or inhibit qualitative affordances for experiences such as belonging. The narrative aspect of narrative environment means that it ‘emerge[s] from feelings, and represent personal experiences that are socially constructed through language and other representational practices’ (Fenton et al., 2012).

Loneliness and belonging in narrative environments,2023

For a further research of how student sense of belonging and emotions being influent by environment, I have read this article Loneliness and belonging in narrative environment. The author talk about that this article argues for the importance of narrative environment as a theoretical approach for evaluating the significance of environmental factors influencing the emotional experiences of loneliness and belonging. Emotions and belonging not only show and depend on the built environment but also through the personal feeling, communication, language, power, culture etc. in the narrative environment.

Positive influence-natural environment

We not only feel more connected to the natural world, we also feel more kinship with our human community. Exposure to nature increases social cohesion which consists of shared norms, positive relationships with others and feelings of belonging. Studies on populations, such as public housing residents, show that those who have access to green space and green views have more social ties with their neighbours and a stronger sense of community. We know that attachment to a place or a group is highly protective for positive mental health, especially for youth and older adults.

Reports by respected organizations including the World Health Organization, the American Public Health Association, Canadian Parks Council, and Toronto Public Health, have all documented the positive impact nature has on our personal sense of belonging and wellbeing.

Sherry N, How Nature Supports a Sense of Belonging and Well-being, available at:

Loneliness

Loneliness corresponds to a discrepancy between an individual’s preferred and actual social relation. The definition underscores the fact that feeling alone or lonely does not necessarily mean feeling alone (see J.T Cacioppo et al., this issue). One can feel lonely in the crowd or in a marriage. Reciprocally, one may enjoy being alone (a pleasant state defined as soliude; Tillich, 1959).

Although this crucial component of loneliness helps better differentiate subjective social isolation (loneliness) from objective social isolation, it has led occasionally to a conflation of loneliness and other dysphoric states (e.g., social anxiety, depression) in which a person’s subjective experiencing of their social environment plays also a crucial role.

Collective loneliness refers to a person’s valued social identities or “active network” (eg., group, school,team, or national identity) wherein an individual can connect to similar others at a distance in the collective space.

It is normal for a human to express their emotions with specific “others”. However, as I started living in a foreign country alone four years ago, I started to fight the loneliness, as time passed, I got used to it gradually. As an international student living in the UK, I always find that it is common and important for me to cope with my emotions independently. So for this project, the change I want to see is for the improvement of international student social-belonging, helping them to cope with their emotions independently in order to get involved better in the unfamiliar environment. According to the survey results I have done with some of the international students, although most of them will share their emotions with someone else, there are 43.8% of them not sure about if they received any useful responses for helping them handle with their emotions while there are still 18.8% of them didn’t receive any help at all. Therefore, based on the result data, it’s clear to see that awareness of being independent on coping with emotions is important for international students, also helping with improving social-well being and happiness in their independent life. 

Before I narrowed down the specific ideas for making the change, I have done some research from resources for knowledge and questionnaire about the general ideas of how emotions influence physical human health conditions to be the supportive point of view for how I find the importance of caring about the emotions. Neuroticism, defined as the tendency to experience negative emotions and display aggressive, hostile, or angry behavioral patterns, is well-known to be a risk factor for a range of physical health outcomes like cardiovascular disease, asthma, and hypertension. (Liji Thomas,2022) And according to the data from my questionnaire, 86.7% of people have physically felt bad or uncomfortable or have any other physiological response when they are coping with their negative emotions, especially anger and depression. However, it is also important to engage with how they feel individually especially when they have some personal situations when they come up with their emotional problems. So for my next possible step, I will try to take a step forward on the primary research to engage with their stories and feelings towards their emotions problems and also find out some organizations related to international students such as student union for more primary resources.

Lastly, I would like to point out an idea for the theme I would use in this project: “pocket” as a functional feature to create an emotional companion for people experiencing loneliness to express their emotions. It will become a trustworthy relationship between you and your pocket. The emotional companion helps us to empathize ourselves with the function of collecting our emotions, representing the other side of “us”. 

Do you usually share your negative emotions with someone?

If you have experience of sharing your negative emotions to others, have you received any useful solutions to make you feel better?

Do you physically feel bad or uncomfortable or have any other physiological response when you express your negative emotions such as anger, anxiety and upset?

In which way do you think will make you feel better if you feel stressed or depressed when you are living in a foreign country?

Brainstorming ideas

Brainstorming ideas note

• Emotional inhibition
• Emotional self-regulation vs. emotional dysregulation
• Coping with emotion
• Cause of the health problems (mental & physical)
• Self Empathy and Self Awareness
• Way to engaging negative emotions
• Disguise yourself
• lifestyle
• environment
• Emotional roller coaster
• dairy
• Sad Clown Paradox
• Self worth
• International student
• social well-being
• social-belonging

A Day with Facai

In order to get close to a pet for exploring more ideas, I have a one to one interaction with a male cat called Facai. In this video, when he was leading me to the garden, we did a lot of eye contact with each other, which show there is a ”communication” happening. At the end, of the first clip, I also lead him back to the house without any treats toward him.

It is also interesting to see that he was more attracted by specific type of things such as the location of where his owner is, and round shape object even it is not a toy for him.

• Anthropomorphic applied to animals

Reference: Article of Anthropomorphism and Anthropomorphic Selection – Beyond the “Cute Response” James A. Serpell

Anthropomorphism appears to have its roots in the human capacity for so-called “reflexive consciousness”—that is, the ability to use self-knowledge, knowledge of what it is like to be a person, to understand and anticipate the behavior of others (Humphrey, 1983)

From earliest childhood, it seems, we instinctively view other animals as social subjects (Myers & Saunders, 2002) and imbue them with human-like intelligence, desires, beliefs, and intentions.

Anthropomorphism has been a tremendous boon to animals according to the increasing amount of domestic animals, which species now vastly outnumber their wild ancestor.

From an animal welfare perspective, however, the effects of anthropomor- phism are far less benign. Anthropomorphic selection8—that is, selection in favor of physical and behavioral traits that facilitate the attribution of human men- tal states to nonhumans—imposes unusual and unique pressures on the objects of its attentions, in much the same way that the phenomenon of “female choice” does in sexual selection.

In the article of James, there are positive and negative thoughts from the author’s perspective. Anthropomorphism affects animals and importantly, the human response to animals. The article mentions examples of pets using humans “art of releasing and exploiting our innate parental instinct” to react “cute response” which is a classic example of pet and human interaction. It’s an interesting phenomenon that pet know how to “please” human in order to ask for their needs. It is also correspond the interview with La La’s owner, who claims that her pet will take his leash in front of the owner when he heard the owner said “let’s go downstairs”. Barking at the owner if they go out without him. which from the behaviors appear to this time, with his owner’s experience, is being told not to go outside without him. This case shows that La La could give his consent to his owner, have abilities to deliver his thoughts about what he like or dislike.

Animal right activists use Anthropomorphism instead of swing animal as private property, they view animals have the same hierarchy as human.

Negative points of Anthropomorphism:

• Over expectations of animal behaviors such as never to express their natural instincts
• Over feeding the pets 
• …

Today I interviewed with some pet owners who used to lived or living with their dog or cat. For a better in-depth details of the information from their experience and incase the answers are unified, I had a one to one interview with each of the owner. During the chat, I found that they have common feelings with their pets that they considered their pets as part of their family. They seem like they are quite sure about their pet’s feeling and purpose of the behaviors from some experiences.

For this interview I’ve asked them below these main questions:

• Do you think your pet understand or know about what you are saying?
• Can you know how your pet feels in any situation or what’s the pet want to do?
• Do you feel your pet’s emotion?
• Do you think is important for your pet to understand human world?
• Do you have any interesting or unforgettable stories you want to share?

Case 1

Pet: Poodle , name: Daisy, Stan

The owner claims that her dogs have different IQ levels which she thinks her female dog Daisy usually is more clever than the other male dog called Stan. She thinks Daisy can understand her from human facial expressions as well as the behavior. On the other hand, the owner can also read Daisy’s emotions and feelings from Daisy’s facial expression because she will turn her eyeballs around and show her the white part of the eye which normally dogs only show their eyeballs. She thinks Daisy shows her attitude of “disdain”. 

Daisy can realize when her family members got sick. She saved the owner’s niece’s life when she saw her lying on the bed feeling really bad, then started barking at the owner to tell her to save her niece. Stan got depressed when her sister Daisy got sick.

The owner thinks the pet understands her more than she understands her dog.

Case 2

Pet: male dog, Pet name: 拉拉 La La

Fiona: “Sometimes I think 拉拉（La La) understands me when I felt not happy, he would come to me and stay with me very quietly. I think he can feel my feelings. In daily life, he is very naughty, but when you feel not happy, he may understand you and just stay with you. La La has lived with us for around 20 years, we may know some of his daily habits as well as some requirements. For example, he really likes going downstairs to play, as long as we said “let’s go down stairs, he will go to find her leash and approach us to put it on.  If we are about to go out without him, he will bark at us and ask to bring him together. 

Sometimes I can feel my dog’s emotions but he only knows his family members. He always follows us and can not stay without us. Otherwise he will get scared. His tail condition is related to his mood, for example shaking his tail mostly means he is happy.

I don’t think it is important for La La to understand the human world because dogs with their independent life, are all different indepence. He has a short life compared to humans. I just want him to be happy and it’s not necessary to understand us. But we believe if we feed him well and love him, he can feel a sense of security and love.”

Case 3

Pet: male cat, Name: Mi Mi

“I do think he understood me.  Whenever he wanted to scratch our sofa he always checked and made sure that my mom wasn’t there. Because she was the only person who would shout him off the sofa.

Yeah I think because humans are way smarter than our pets, so we could detect their emotions and motivations easily. I used to use dog treats  to entice my dog back to her cage, and then she noticed that whenever she sees the treat when we are going out or it is time for her to go back to the cage she will just look away and drooling. She knows that she can’t resist the temptation if she sees the treat. I don’t know how does she detect when we want her to get back the cage or just want to treat her, she will have treats without a second thought when it is “safe “. It is important for her to understand our world, otherwise it might be difficult for people and animals to live under the same roof. I think people understand animals less than animals because people will find lots of ways to make animals understand them.”

Case 4

Pet: Female cat, Name: tomato 

“My cat like living independently, but when she want to eat or play, she will spread out in front of me or rub around my foot. I do know her mood, if she feel unhappy she will stay alone and saying “meow meow”. When she feel happy she will run around the house. For me, I don’t think she have ability to understand the human world. When I was alone with out my boyfriend at night, I will call her then she will come to me with the annoying “meow”, but still accompany me to sleep.”

My conclusion 

½ of the interviewers think it is important for animals to understand the human world. However, all of them have cases to prove their pet understands them through the owner’s behavior or facial expression. And all of the interviewers have experience to know that sometimes they can read their emotions.

Lala case proves that dogs can give consent to humans. 

Most of the interviewers claim that they understand their pet through their behaviors or facial expressions. However, if humans understand their pet is realistic? 

Or are they just guesting from human consciousness and ideas?

René Descartes

Descartes considered animal as merely ‘mechanisms’ or ‘automata’——complex physical machines without experience because they can’t talk or philosophizing as human. So, they are lack of soul and thinking.  Method (1637) and Meditations (1641)

Ralph Cudworth disagreement of René Descartes and his concept of soul

Animals might not speak or think like human, however they have feeling and regarding to the various animal behaviors, Cudworth claimed animals like human, have soul.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau philosophy theory of animal right

Rousseau in the Discourse on Inequality argued that animals should be part of natural law, not because they are rational but because they are sentient. He argued that sensitivity, the capacity to experience pleasure and suffering, entitles rights. Animals being sensitive experience pain and suffering and therefore as a consequence they should have rights.

Compare to human, for us it is hard to tell what is their actual feelings and consciousness. But based on the current understanding of the animals behavior, some behaviors or purposes of the animals are quite obviously recognized such as “eating”, “playing”, “hot”, “family”. However, I believe they don’t have ideas or concepts of diet, heat stroke, mental illness even though some animals might also suffer from mental illness according to the cases happening until now. On the other hand, people might ignore that animals also have their life circle and they might also have their perception or defination of things, for example they will use their language to defined “heat stroke” in their world that we will never know. Even so, they still use their language to communicate with human.

For the animals, do they realize anything happened on them, for example, if they can realize concept such as disease, over eat, mental illness?

Reference: Philosophy Now, Sydney, Kaldas (2015) Available at https://philosophynow.org/issues/108/Descartes_versus_Cudworth_On_The_Moral_Wort h_of_Animals

Grimsley. R, (1973) The phiolsophy of Rousseau, London Oxford NewYork