Saturday 23 April 2011

Solastalgia

Completing a uni assignment and needed to find five different psychological disorders for a character in a screenplay. Found this in Wikipedia and just loved it.

Solastalgia is a neologism coined by the Australian philosopher Glenn Albrecht in 2003 with the first article published on this concept in 2005.[2] It describes a form of psychic or existential distress caused by environmental change, such as mining or climate change.

As opposed to nostalgia - the melancholia or homesickness experienced by individuals when separated from a loved home - "solastalgia" is the distress that is produced by environmental change impacting on people while they are directly connected to their home environment. A paper published by Albrecht and collaborators focused on two contexts where collaborative research teams found solastalgia to be evident: the experiences of persistent drought in rural New South Wales (NSW) and the impact of large-scale open-cut coal mining on individuals in the Upper Hunter Valley of NSW. In both cases, people exposed to environmental change experienced negative effects exacerbated by a sense of powerlessness or lack of control over the unfolding change process

4 comments:

Brenda The Bregle Rebel Bag Lady said...

i bet theres a few people in christchurch feeling solastalgia (phew thats a mouthful)

Linda Cockburn said...

And in Japan, QLD, NSW, VIC, islands in the Pacific... a fairly common affliction I would think, globally, these days. Suffer a bit myself. Not much solace to be had in solastalgia.

Bungy said...

I might have the sense of it a bit wrong, but I feel that even when I never saw a place before we got to it. Look out on so many de-treed, over-grazed, eroded and saline paddocks, and think about how it would have been before we got here.

Anonymous said...

Sorry this is not post-related. I just finished your book living the good life - wanted to send some love. Its absolutely awesome. thankyou for your amazing contribution to humanity