Solastalgia and the Gendered Nature of Climate Change: An Example from Erub Island, Torres Strait

Abstract

This communication focuses on respected older womens’ (‘Aunties’) experiences of climate and other environmental change observed on Australia’s Erub Island in the Torres Strait. By documenting these experiences, we explore the gendered nature of climate change, and provide new perspectives on how these environmental impacts are experienced, enacted and responded to. The way these adverse changes affect people and places is bound up with numerous constructions of difference, including gender. The responses of the Aunties interviewed to climate change impacts revealed Solastalgia; feelings of sadness, worry, fear and distress, along with a declining sense of self, belonging and familiarity.