Climate emotionsMichael Schnegg awarded in New Orleans

27 November 2025, by CLICCS News

Photo: Michael Schnegg

Collective loneliness: Michael Schnegg studies climate emotions.

At this year's annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) in New Orleans, Professor Michael Schnegg received the Stirling Prize for his article "Collective Loneliness." This award recognizes the outstanding significance of the article for psychological anthropology. 

The winning article explores how people in rural Namibia experience climate change emotionally. To achieve this, Schnegg adopts a phenomenological approach, locating emotions not 'between the ears', but as atmospheres that emerge between human and non-human bodies, transcending them simultaneously. According to this perspective, people resonate with these atmospheres, and it is this resonance that gives rise to their feelings. If these landscape constellations change as a result of climate change, their atmospheres also change, ultimately leading to certain feelings – in this case, collective loneliness.

The article forms the theoretical basis for Schnegg's research project within the CLICCS Cluster of Excellence at the University of Hamburg. In the project, he is working with Prof. Simone Rödder and Prof. Frank Steinicke to investigate how people react emotionally to climate change.