2.1 Environmental melancholia

Conceptual approach

This chapter describes concepts from respective theories and philosophies that form the foundation of this thesis. To begin, it unpacks and operationalizes environmental melancholia, because it is the key theory explored within the psychology - glacier retreat - landscape architecture framework. It then introduces the terms melancholy and contemplation, because they form the foundation of the spatial response to environmental melancholia (Chapter 3 develops the rationale behind these choices and Chapter 4 demonstrates how they are applied).

To understand why these concepts were chosen, it is important to note that this thesis presents an argument. It argues that melancholy is an important emotional experience, contemplation is progressive, and aesthetics are performative. This chapter explains how the literature informs these arguments, and in turn, how they inform the subsequent research and design choices.

ecological degradation

unresolved loss and mourning ambivalence

environmental melancholia

reparation

2.1 ENVIRONMENTAL MELANCHOLIA

Environmental melancholia, a form of melancholia, is “an arrested, inchoate form of mourning – [that] is at the heart of much of the inaction in response to ecological degradation” (Lertzman, 2015, p. xiii). It is a term coined by psychologist and consultant, Renee Lertzman in her book, Environmental Melancholia: Psychoanalytic Dimensions of Engagement. The work responds to the lack of acknowledgement for psychological processes in most environmental action, advocacy, and communication work. It provides a comprehensive argument for its inclusion and challenges researchers to apply new methods that are capable of dealing with such complex experiences.

The experience of loss in association to non-human objects, namely environments, is relatively new in psychosocial research. Psychosocial research has primarily focused on human relations and interpersonal dimensions “without attending to the ‘realness’ of our object worlds and the spaces we move through” (Lertzman, 2015, p. 88). Actually attending to this resonates with landscape architecture and suggests that space might hold the capacity to repair and heal.