Talk:Solastalgia

Untitled
"nostalgia" has long been used not just for geographical but also for temporal yearning. In other words, "solastalgia" is an artificial term for what is usually just called "nostalgia". --dab (𒁳) 09:51, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Not so, solastagia is the "lived experience"(the here and now) of negatively perceived environmental change. It features the melancholia of nostalgia but has no necessary connection to past geographical or temporal states. People who experience solastalgia remain in their home environment (as opposed to strong nostalgia) and they do not yearn for a specific time in the past where things might have been better (weak nostalgia) ... they want the solace they derive from their home environment to be protected from ongoing undesirable change. They are willing to work into the future to ensure that such solace is returned/strengthened (active environmental restoration, for example). This is why open cut coal mining and climate change cause solastalgia, they are chronic environmental stressors over which people have little or no ability to control (powerlessness). Nostalgia itself is an "artificial term" so this is not a reason to change the entry in Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Glenn Albrecht (talk • contribs) 00:20, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

I have created the term "Psychoterratic" to cover all forms of mental health (positive and negative) connected to states of the biophysical environment. Genuine nostalgia (distress at loss of spatial connection to a home environment) then becomes a psychoterratic mental health syndrome along with solastalgia and emergent syndromes such as eco-anxiety. The term, 'psychoterratic' was first used and explained in the Albrecht et al (2007) article. It would make sense to add an entry in Wikipedia on 'Psychoterratic' that covers all forms of earth related mental health issues.

so, what is the etymology of solastalgia? Please don't let it be "solace" and "nostalgia". "Nostalgia" is a compond of "nost-" and "algia", "algia" meaning "pain". "Solastalgia" would therefore be the pain related to "solast-", whatever that is. Frankly, if the professional philosophers in this age aren't capable of parsing Greek any more, I feel definitely solastalgic about the negatively perceived changes in the the academic environment.

Never mind that. The question is, is the term notable enough for a standalone Wikipedia article. Otherwise, it can just be made a dictdef at wikt:solastalgia. --dab (𒁳) 15:39, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

There are now 90,000 entries for 'solastalgia' in Google. The concept is being applied in many contexts including art, music and place-based research. Perhaps this might be enough to satisfy even the most demanding of critics.


 * I have published material on the origins of the word 'solastalgia' and its origins in the new latin word nostalgia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Glenn Albrecht (talk • contribs)
 * Latin indeed. The term gets five (5) hits on google books. But the point is that it isn't clear how making up a portmanteau of two words is equivalent to introducing a new concept. People have felt regret or distress in the face of environmental destruction for more than a century. The sentiment has found ample reflection in literature. It would be helpful to compile a summary of this history with a good bibliography. Our "environmental degradation" articles are sadly lacking in historical outlook. I don't see how it is helpful to just tout a new name for it. --dab (𒁳) 12:47, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Webarnold. Peer reviewers: Maggiep.

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 24 August 2020 and 12 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Laurenzoey23, A hern8.

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NY Times article
From Smith, Daniel B. [http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/magazine/31ecopsych-t.html Is There an Ecological Unconscious? ]. NYTimes.com, January 27, 2010. A version of this article appeared in print on January 31, 2010, on page 36 of The New York Times Sunday Magazine.
 * In Albrecht’s view, the residents of the Upper Hunter were suffering not just from the strain of living in difficult conditions but also from something more fundamental: a hitherto unrecognized psychological condition. In a 2004 essay, he coined a term to describe it: “solastalgia,” a combination of the Latin word solacium (comfort) and the Greek root –algia (pain), which he defined as “the pain experienced when there is recognition that the place where one resides and that one loves is under immediate assault . . . a form of homesickness one gets when one is still at ‘home.’ ” A neologism wasn’t destined to stop the mines; they continued to spread. But so did Albrecht’s idea. In the past five years, the word “solastalgia” has appeared in media outlets as disparate as Wired, The Daily News in Sri Lanka and Andrew Sullivan’s popular political blog, The Daily Dish. In September, the British trip-hop duo Zero 7 released an instrumental track titled “Solastalgia,” and in 2008 Jukeen, a Slovenian recording artist, used the word as an album title. “Solastalgia” has been used to describe the experiences of Canadian Inuit communities coping with the effects of rising temperatures; Ghanaian subsistence farmers faced with changes in rainfall patterns; and refugees returning to New Orleans after Katrina. -- Petersam (talk) 00:52, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Nature Deficit Disorder
This seems at least distantly related to Nature deficit disorder. Would it be appropriate for a See Also entry? (reverse question also posted to target talk page).

YeauxRly (talk) 21:30, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Major Edits
I will be making additions to and reformatting the article over the next few days. I am going to be adding specific examples of solastalgia across different societies. Also, I think the first sentence of the second paragraph counts as plagiarism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Webarnold (talk • contribs) 17:31, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

The changes I have made to the article are as follow:

increased citations, deleted irrelevant content, fixed grammatical errors, discussed solastalgia in different societal/cultural contexts (South Pacific, Africa, North America).

These changes were necessary so that readers will understand that solastalgia can be caused by many types of environmental changes and is not experienced in the same way by all communities. I would like to see the "solastalgia in different contexts" section become more representative of communities around the globe as more research on the topic comes out.

--Webarnold (talk) 16:42, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

needs expansion to impact on physical health?
since there is research on this subject? Likeanechointheforest (talk) 20:21, 15 July 2021 (UTC)