Events
Meetings take place online every few weeks and are open to anyone in the network. Sessions are announced here first. To propose a session, write to us.
Upcoming
No events scheduled at the moment. Check back, or get in touch if you would like to propose one.
Past events
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Online meeting
Yael Mishani shared her ongoing work on the language of place attachment in Jewish and Palestinian residents of Jersualem/AlQuds. Preliminary findings already show quite fundamental differences in the way place attachment is conceptualised in this contested space.
Philipp Striedl then talked about his work on landscape language in Moroccan Arabic and Tashelhit, collected via georeferenced go-along interviews. He is working towards a typology of landscape language and expressed interest in connecting with others interested in this topic for possible collaboration.
Both presentations sparked inspiring discussion, showing much joint interest.
The final 15 minutes of the session were spent talking about the future structure of this network.
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Online meeting
Lana St Leger shared some of her work in Wales, focusing on a White Paper produced for the “Wellbeing of Future Generations Commissioner” in Wales, highlighting how climate change is threatening Welsh heritage and how language plays a central role in this regard.
Franz-Benjamin Mocnik presented his work on place representations as part of the Space & Place LAB at the University of Salzburg, Austria, pointing out how our understandings of places change with climate (and other) changes.
Vincenzo Amendolara shared his ongoing PhD work on social media discourse across languages/countries about the climate, demonstrating patterns of negative and positive discourse associated with diverse groupings and suggesting that contributing in a positive way to this discourse can make a real difference.
Three relevant conferences were briefly introduced, unfortunately all happening at the same time (!) in mid September: ILANSCO conference on Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Landscapes in Language, Society, and Cognition in Prague; PLATIAL’26: International Symposium on Platial Information Science in Salzburg, and a Geographers’ Congress in Vilnius with a conference themed ‘Development of Resilient Cities and Regions’.
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Online meeting
Liesbeth Huybrechts shared her work as part of the Reworlding EU project which addresses socio-ecological concerns via participatory approaches, as well as the Spatial Capacity Building research cluster that presents various projects supporting spatial transformation processes. Liesbeth’s extensive experience from working with people across domains of life as well as countries and cultures has frequently highlighted the importance of language and culture as joint understandings are being sought, in contexts of community resilience, sustainability, climate change challenges and more. Cross-cultural barriers linked with language concern perceptions as well as policies, posing challenges in developing aligned visions and joint narratives. The ability to speak more than one language and connect with diverse cultural backgrounds is invaluable, as well as building up networks across countries, where experts can translate and mediate between the expert group and the diverse cultures.
Niamh Ann Kelly gave an overview of relevant research at TU Dublin, highlighting a range of areas where language matters in the context of climate change. Niamh’s own work centres on museums, cultural representations of food security, and cultural heritage, all of which involve cultural interpretation, perceptions and narratives that characterise the associated social histories.
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Online meeting
In this meeting, we heard from Michael Cronin’s work on the under-appreciated importance of Irish in climate contexts, as well as about the Eco-Translation Network. Meg Holden shared her work on Translanguaging through the SAGA project in Canada, and Lowri Cunnington Wynn reported about the efforts the Welsh Government is making in recognition of the relationship between the climate crisis and the Welsh language crisis in Wales. Finally, Ove Bergerson presented his work on gardens with children in Norway, bringing them closer to nature and exploring their thoughts in the process.
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First network meeting
In this inspiring initial meeting, the scope of the network was outlined, all members introduced themselves and there were several short presentations. Also, some discussion of ecolinguistics - a field that is relevant for the network but not focussed on climate.