Living in a non-place: mining, solastalgia and the loss of home

Hedda is conducting an ethnographic study in the Upper Hunter and her presentation is about the sense of loss of home in the context of large scale development and environmental change, as well as ethics of development. She is raising awareness of the issues around mining and displacement focussing on Wollar, a historic village surrounded by three open-cut mines, her case study for over 5 years.

Hedda brings in the notion of solastalgia, as well as the concept eritalgia, which she has developed as a third concept in the triade of nostalgia-solastalgia-eritalgia. She will explain why we need ‘to expand the current concepts we have for explaining displacement to something that is about people’s lived experiences and incorporates their imagined futures.’