Language as the Ecology of Belonging

Research Focus

We explore how grammatical structures influence human perception of the environment and our sense of ecological belonging. We contrast Western languages, which often fragment reality into isolated objects and encourage a sense of ownership, with the Western Desert languages of Australia. These Indigenous languages utilize verb-centered structures and distributed agency to foster a worldview grounded in movement, kinship, and reciprocal care for the land. By integrating the relational physics of David Bohm with Tjukurpa cosmology, we argue that grammar acts as a vital ecological infrastructure. We suggest that ecological restoration requires sustaining linguistic practices that emphasize interconnection rather than separation.