đżEnvironmental Keywords
When I started this newsletter back in the summer of 2020, I began writing short essays on âeco-keywordsâ or âenvironmental keywordsâ that took a particular word I encountered in my research as a writing prompt to reflect a bit more about it and share what I discover in the process. Most of these essays are somewhere between 1,000-2,000 words, and give me an opportunity to explore a topic in environmental communication in more depth and from different perspectives. They sometimes make an argument. More often they end up being like a collection of thoughts loosely held together under a particular environmental theme, like âbiocultural hope,â âwildness,â or âthe Anthropo-scene.â
I was inspired to start writing about environmental keywords after reading a couple of projects with a similar aim. One project is the Living Lexicon, a section in the Environmental Humanities journal. These are fairly academic essays with the aim of addressing the tension between âcritique and action.â As the journal puts it, keywords examine âan important tension between, on the one hand, the common critical focus of the humanities in âunsettlingâ dominant narratives, and, on the other, the dire need for thoughtful and constructive practice in these dark times.â
Another inspiration is the literary scholar Raymond Williamsâ 1976 book, Keywords: A vocabulary of culture and society. A keyword, for Williams, is a significant word that, on the one hand, provides a particular way not just of talking about the world, but of âseeing many of our central experiences.â On the other hand, keywords also capture ideas that âopen up issues and problems.â At the end of Keywords, Williams leaves several blank pages as an invitation to readers to add their own keywords. In that spirit, here is a growing list of keywords (sometimes key phrases) Iâve explored in Wild OnesâŚ