Paper Short Abstract:

This presentation discusses a research project currently in development that proposes a transformative methodology of performance involving the poetic narrative across a range of contexts to explore emotions experienced in climate change. Eco-emotions are both elicited and performed as poetry.

Paper Abstract:

The climate emergency is a transformative stressor, contributing to the global increase in emotional distress, but also important to climate resilience and action. This presentation discusses a research project currently in development that proposes a transformative methodology of performance involving the poetic narrative across a range of contexts. Poetry possesses a unique performative value that taps into our emotions. With this approach, eco-emotions are both elicited and performed as poetry. It contains, therefore, an element of eco-poetics, enhancing awareness of climate issues, but it goes further in that it uses poetry in research settings and in disseminating research as public performance. This research brings to the forefront the work of contemporary philosophers such as the work of Glenn Albrecht on the notion of ‘solastalgia’ (the sense of loss of place) and Timothy Morton’s ‘coexistentialism’ (ethical entanglement with the other). Our research throws light in our ethical entanglement with climate issues that can be acknowledged, as we aim to demonstrate with this project, through hearing feelings; how we, as individuals, in other words, feel about the climate change and the various environmental effects that we experience emotionally upon our lives.