Embodied experiences of environmental and climatic changes in landscapes of everyday life in Ghana |
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| Institution: | 1. Department of Geography and Earth and Environmental Systems Institute, The Pennsylvania State University, 322 Walker Building, University Park, PA 16802, USA;2. Department of Geography, The Pennsylvania State University, 335 Walker Building, University Park, PA 16802, USA;3. Department of Anthropology, The Pennsylvania State University, 409 Carpenter Building, University Park, PA 16802, USA;1. Institute of Place Management, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK;2. School of Geography, University of Melbourne, Australia;3. Global Development Institute, University of Manchester, UK;1. Cities Research Institute, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia;2. School of Environment and Science, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia;1. School of Arts and Humanities, Edith Cowan University, 270 Joondalup Drive, Joondalup, Western Australia 6027, Australia;2. Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Private Bag 5, Wembley 6014, Australia;1. Department of Geography, The University of Western Ontario, 1151 Richmond Street North, London, ON N6A 5C2, Canada;2. Department of Development Sociology, Cornell University, 122 Academic Surge A, Ithaca, NY 14853, United States |
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| Abstract: | Science and policy attention to global environmental and climatic change has been growing substantially. Yet, the psychological and emotional distress and pain triggered by these transformations have been largely ignored, particularly among poor and marginalized populations whose livelihoods depend on the living land. Building upon key geographical concepts of landscapes and place and embodied engagements within, we focus on environmentally-induced distress and loss of belonging (‘solastalgia’) in the coupled context of environmental and climatic changes and internal migration in Ghana. We assess the differential emotional experiences and memory among those who migrate from deteriorating environments in the North to urban slums in the capital Accra and those who stay behind in these altered homes. We use participatory mapping and 'walking journeys' in northern regions to examine understandings of landscapes of everyday life and identify places that induce solastalgia. Results illustrate that the combination of withered crops, drying up of wells, loss of beauty, and deteriorating social networks trigger strong emotional responses, in particular feelings of sadness. We conclude that these emotional responses are expressions of solastalgia in what we call “hollow homes” where place and self of agrarian livelihoods undergo both figurative and literal desiccation. |
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