Land Body Ecologies

Since 2019, we have worked in long-term collaboration with indigenous and land-dependent communities who are on the frontlines of climate change, ecological degradation, and land rights struggles. Our research is rooted in place and in practice, grounded in the lived experiences of those who endure land trauma when the environments they depend on are altered or destroyed.

In 2021, LBE was awarded the Wellcome Trust Hub Award, a grant that enabled us to establish a collaborative residency at the Wellcome Collection in London. This space brought together researchers, artists, and community voices to critically examine how mental health is affected by ecosystem loss — and to expand the language and understanding of solastalgia.

Rooted in seven diverse locations, Finland, Sápmi, India, Kenya, Uganda, Thailand, and the United Kingdom, LBE is committed to understanding the lived experiences of land trauma among marginalised, land-dependent communities.

Across all hubs, solastalgia emerged as a powerful and resonant thread, reflecting the profound emotional toll of ecological loss:

• How is the mental health of marginalised, land-dependent communities affected by changes in their ecosystems?
• To what extent does the definition of ‘solastalgia’ encompass the lived experiences of marginalised, land-dependent communities?
• How do historical and contemporary violences faced by marginalised, land-dependent communities feature in their lived experience of solastalgia?

Rather than treating solastalgia as a static term, LBE seeks to make it more reflective of the layered realities- colonialism, displacement, extractive economies- that marginalised communities continue to navigate.

A Network of Global Hubs

LBE’s strength lies in its global network, where hubs are embedded within local communities. This structure allows for a rich, multi-sited exploration of solastalgia, each site offering a unique lens:

Through a three-year collaboration, insights from each hub informed and challenged each other, weaving together a fuller, more complex understanding of land-body trauma.

LBE highlights that ecological loss is not just an environmental issue, but deeply psychological. In recognising solastalgia as a living, evolving experience shaped by historic injustices, it challenges and expands dominant narratives about mental health and the environment. The network’s commitment to centering marginalised voices ensures that the redefinition of solastalgia is grounded in lived realities, not abstract theory.

These experiences have been brought together in a publication titled Stories of Solastalgia, documenting the process across different hubs and how these narratives came together in diverse settings.

LBE’s approach is deliberately exploratory and participatory, resisting extractive research models. Rather than beginning with fixed hypotheses, each hub immersed itself in the lived realities of local communities–  learning through presence, dialogue, story-making, and embodied storytelling.

In India, the LBE hub was anchored in Ragihalli Panchayat, made up of 16 hamlets in the eco-sensitive zone of the Bannerghatta National Park. These communities are land-dependent, forest-dependent, and long-term settlers whohold diverse relationships to the land, shaped by histories of displacement, ecological strain, and cultural resilience.

Rethinking Language, Memory, and Method

One of the challenges in Land Body Ecologies’ research was the disconnect between lived experiences of ecological loss and the available language to describe them. In many vernacular languages, particularly in Karnataka, where the India hub was located, there is no direct vocabulary to express emotional states like solastalgia. Western academic frameworks often fall short of fully capturing the nuances of these emotions, and translating these ideas into regional languages revealed a striking absence of emotional “in-betweens.”

This tension pushed the research team to think deeply not only about the conversations that needed to be had, but also about how they could be had. Tools and methods emerged organically: instead of relying solely on interviews or surveys, researchers turned to storytelling prompts, imagery, and historical artifacts that allowed people to enter emotionally resonant conversations in ways that felt natural and respectful.

For example, archival records from the Karnataka State Library Gazette and Lambani oral histories became vital tools. These documents, some of which described Indigenous communities in reductive or civilizing terms, were brought back to the communities not just as references, but as provocations. They became artifacts to respond to, reflect on, and reclaim. This process surfaced painful memories and truths: how traditional ways of dressing, farming, or moving through forests were slowly abandoned in an effort to be seen as “modern” or “civilized.”

In Bannerghatta, the fading traditions of planting, sowing, and harvesting ragi, a staple crop, became a metaphor for loss and adaptation. In conversations around these practices, the community recalled how seasonal rhythms once mirrored emotional and spiritual life. Today, those rhythms have been disrupted by environmental degradation and changing land use.

We also used a version of photo-elicitation in our research, giving community members simple polaroid cameras to document their experiences, losses and memories. This method shifted agency to participants, allowing them to express their experiences and losses on their own terms, rather than only respond to predefined questions. They were invited to take photos that evoked emotion - joy, fear, pride, nostalgia, longing - and then reflect on why they chose those images through open conversations. This approach offered a safe, indirect way into emotionally complex topics, especially around loss and mental health. We later adapted and tested the method in other hubs in Kenya and Uganda, where it proved equally powerful in surfacing stories that might otherwise have remained unspoken.

These alternative approaches reflect LBE’s broader research and story-telling methodology: rooted in respectful listening, relational inquiry, and cultural responsiveness, constantly evolving in response to the realities of each community. They are not just tools for extraction, but for co-creation and reflection, allowing knowledge to be shaped by those who live it.

Innovative Tools for Deep Listening Story wasn’t just an output; it was central to the methodology. The use of polaroids, oral histories, podcasting, short films, and community archives helped generate knowledge, not just communicate it.Through the three-year collaborative residency, Land Body Ecologies cultivated an ethics of listening and story-based inquiry that bridges mental health and ecological trauma. What began as a network has grown into a living, relational practice—one that invites reinterpretation across cultures and contexts, rather than remaining a static archive.

The Land Body Ecologies network is built through deep partnerships across its global hubs. It includes Invisible Flock and Minority Rights Group (London hub), Action for Batwa Empowerment Group (ABEG) (Bwindi hub, Uganda), Jenni Laiti, Indigenous rights activist and climate justice advocate (Sámi hub), Siwakorn Odachao, founder of Lazy Man Coffee (Thailand hub), Outi Autti (sociologist), and Kaisa Kerätär (art manager and biologist) (Arctic hub - Lapland and Kemijoki), and the Ogiek People’s Development Program (OPDP) (Mau Forest, Kenya). The India hub is anchored by Quicksand.

In Bannerghatta, we worked closely with community members of Ragihalli, alongside our collaborators, the Buffaloback Collective, Bharat Mirle (independent filmmaker), Nishant Srinivasaiah (Elephant Biologist), and Arjun Kapoor (Program Director and Senior Research Fellow at CMHLP).