Ecological Grief as a Shared Emotion

Abstract

There is a growing interdisciplinary effort to understand the emotional dimensions of the climate crisis. A central focus in this line of research is ecological grief—the grief felt in relation to ecological losses. Ecological grief is frequently claimed to be a shared emotion. Here, we discuss whether, and in which way, ecological grief is a shared emotion. We argue that ecological grief is characteristically shared as a group-based emotion. The shared character of ecological grief comes down to the shared nature of place-based practices and place-based identity, and this is reflected in the intentional structure of ecological grief, which is about our possibilities that have been lost through the loss of place. Ecological grief is also, we argue, apt to take the form of a shared process due to the often ambiguous and ongoing nature of ecological losses.