Written Into History? Solastalgia and Emotion Under the Western Gaze

Abstract

In 2003, after witnessing strong emotional distress in populations near new open-pit mining projects, environmental philosopher Glenn Albrecht coined the environmental neologism solastalgia to refer to “the pain or sickness caused by the loss of, or inability to derive solace from, the present state of one's home environment.” The term has spread beyond Albrecht, now used in both climate change related academic literature and attempts to grapple with climate change through the arts. In this project, I consider the pathologized presentation of the term solastalgia and its conceptualization through western science in order to explore how the naming and ‘languaging’ of a particular experience influence what is written into history, what is not, and why that writing is being done in the first place.