Stories of Solastalgia

When the land is sick, we are sickFor Indigenous peoples,climate change is one more catastrophic loss on top of decades of landabuses and intergenerational traumas. The exploitation ofnatural resources under colonialism has consistently marginalised anddispossessed communities around the world whose ways of life are based on theland. Environmental changes,often labelled as 'protection' or 'development' measures, have forciblydisplaced many Indigenous people from their homelands. Extractive industriesand neo-colonial green energy projects are altering delicate ecosystems,harming the health of both the humans and non-human beings that inhabit them. This book examineswhere land, territories and the human body are sites of simultaneous trauma andthe ways in which different forms of ecological degradation unmoor us. Startingfrom solastalgia, a form of mental distress caused by environmental change andone's feelings of inability to prevent or reverse land sickness, the LandBody Ecologies collective present reflections from people living throughenvironmental changes, and propose cultural rights and practices as a mechanismfor survival, revival and healing.