Incorporating emotional geography into climate change research: A case study in Londonderry, Vermont, USA

Abstract

The influence of emotional knowledge upon the ways people experience and understand climate change is increasingly recognized within geographic scholarship; however, limited research considers the potential of emotion to prompt adaptation. Drawing upon literature of emotional geography, social dimensions of climate change, and public participation, this study illustrates the role of emotion in a public participation exercise in Londonderry, Vermont – a small town struggling to recover from Tropical Storm Irene. As a member of an interdisciplinary design team that facilitated a workshop on flood resilience and adaptive design in Londonderry, I witnessed an innovative exercise that employed storytelling, emotion, and body movement. This activity, which I term ‘emotive-physical storytelling’, created a foundation of trust and interpersonal connection that facilitators and residents built upon to plan for flood resiliency. Contrary to recent accounts of the ways that negative emotional responses can cause inaction in the face of climate change, this paper argues that creative public participation methods can generate positive emotions such as hope, responsibility, care, and solidarity. Such emotions have the potential to inspire adaptive action and produce transformative change.