Scientific information is necessary for limiting or reversing the negative consequences of global environmental changes. However, such information alone is not enough to foster sufficient engagement and commitment for the more comprehensive sustainability transformations that are needed. In this focus area we investigate the role of emotions for environmental engagement: we analyse how people talk and what feelings they express, and how this relates to their environmental commitment.   

We draw on both the discipline of environmental psychology to shed light on emotions as intra-individual processes and experiences, and the field of environmental communication to analyse emotions as the result of social interaction and norms, and how emotions are mobilized politically in discursive struggles.  

We investigate emotions in meaning-making in different settings, including history and art exhibitions, but also nature reserves, and do so in close collaboration with the Swedish History Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, and Naturum visitor centres. 

People and organisations

Maria Johansson, Professor in Environmental Psychology at Lund University

Johan Rahm and Marlis Wullenkord, Lund University

Hanna Bergeå, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

Carin Graminius, Swedish School of Library and Information Science (SSLIS), University of Borås

Shiv Ganesh, University of Texas at Austin

Ylva Hillström, Moderna Museet

Susanna Rappe George, Jennifer Shutzberg and Elin Fornander, Åsa Marnell & Li Kolker, Historiska museet

Marie Sager, Naturum Skrylle

Jasmine Zhang, Centre for Nature Interpretation