Zoe Nyssa: We Need to Talk (About How We Talk) About the Environment

[Original Abstract from Lecture]

What are we talking about when we talk about the environment? When we develop solutions to environmental problems, what are we aiming for? Sustainability? Resilience? Adaptation? The future looks quite different in each case. This talk presents findings from a project combining computational (“big data”) and traditional anthropological approaches to track over a century of changes in how we talk about-and don’t talk about-people in relationship to their environments. I argue that the stakes are high for expanding our vocabulary (and thinking!) as we attempt to develop broad-based solutions to the defining environmental challenges of our time.