EHWell - The Environmental Humanities for Well-Being

Mediating Socioecological Emergencies: The Environmental Humanities for Well-Being (EHWell) is an emerging interdisciplinary constellation of researchers from six universities within EUniWell. The short- and long-term ambition behind the initiative is to create interdisciplinary postgraduate educations around the mediation of socioecological emergencies extending across the arts and humanities.

Although the initial focus will be on the creation of a series of modules that can be included in courses offered at participating universities, in addition to an ambulating summer school exploring specific local themes relevant to the project, the long-term ambition is to evaluate the potential for developing a “nomadic” EHWell postgraduate programme within EUniWell. An initial workshop organised as part of the project was hosted by the Nantes Université and the subsequent workshop and initial summer school will be hosted by Linnaeus University. Other participating universities include Leiden University and the Universities of Birmingham, Cologne, and Florence. During the workshop at the Nantes Université and during the workshop and summer school at Linnaeus University, a number of local, external partners have also been invited to present initiatives and work thematically with participating researchers and students.

Purpose and Significance

A complex of climate and socioecological emergencies arguably constitute the most pressing planetary issue we are currently facing. In order to grasp the complexity and urgency of this situation, however, a broad and multifaceted understanding of mediation, taking into account different media types and intermedial relations, remains crucial. In part, the current crises we’re facing are made comprehensible and sensate precisely through such processes of mediation which in turn have an impact on well-being and, significantly, the construction of senses of agency. In line with EUniWell’s mission to ‘enhance global and regional well-being in social, environmental, economic, and cultural terms,’ EHWell sets out to explore this nexus between socioecological emergency, mediation and the development of agencies and practices and experiences of well-being across research and education in the form of EHWell courses and summer schools and, in the long term, potentially an EHWell postgraduate programme. 

Implementation Method and Timeline

Dates: 1 March 2022; 28 February 2023.

EHWell was initiated late 2020 and developed during a 2021 workshop at Nantes Université. The summer school will be further developed in a workshop at Linnaeus University in April 2022. In June 2022, the first version of the summer school will be organised, again at Linnaeus University. During autumn 2022 EHWell modules will be produced that can be included in the curricula of participating institutions. A project evaluation including an outline of the group’s plans ahead will be carried out in autumn 2022, concluding with a digital meeting between all participating institutions in December 2022.

Expected Outcomes

The expected outcome of the project is a set of shared EHWell modules that can be included in curricula at each participating university and an ambulating EHWell summer school, the first version of which will take place at Linnaeus University in the summer of 2022. The project also aims to establish EHWell as a group and explore the potential of starting up a postgraduate EUniWell programme within EUniWell.