Changing environments: Experiences and knowledges

Abstract

This special issue delves into the local worlds of Svalbard, Estonia, Slovenia, and Albania and attests to different ways of knowing, experiencing, and living with the changing environments. Unlike many contemporary studies of environmental change, which focus on the realm of the environment undergoing unprecedented changes, this issue focuses on the processes of changes taking place in particular environments. It asks how these changes evolve, what they mean, and how people make sense of them in their daily lives. By exploring their spatial and temporal realms and the different scales at which they proliferate, this issue emphasizes the processes of changes in relation to environments and not just the other way around. Rather than rashly clinging to crisis or apocalyptic scenarios, it is important to pause and rethink the meanings, rhythms, affects, and effects of these changes in particular local worlds.