title: National identity and environmentalism: Why national narcissism might undermine pro-environmental efforts

authors: Cislak, Aleksandra

subjects: collective narcissism

abstract: The extant literature recognizes national identity as a pivotal factor motivating both individual and collective actions to tackle environmental problems. Yet, prior research shows mixed evidence for the relationship between national identity and environmentalism. Here, we propose a theoretical approach that articulates distinctions between different forms of national identity and their differential associations with environmental attitudes and behaviors. Specifically, we argue that it is key to differentiate national identification, which reflects a positive attachment to one's country and ties to other compatriots, from national narcissism, which reflects viewing one's country as exceptional and deserving of special treatment. In contrast to national identification, national narcissism is consistently associated with lower environmental concern and predicts support for anti-environmental policies. We show that this is likely due to national narcissism being linked to belief in climate-related conspiracy theories, support for policies that challenge external pressures yet present the nation in a positive light (e.g., greenwashing), and focusing on short-term benefits for the nation. Extending past individual-level findings, we report a pre-registered analysis across 56 countries examining whether national narcissism is also linked to objective indices of lower environmental protection at the country level of analysis. Results revealed a negative relationship between countries' environmental performance and country-level national narcissism (while adjusting for national identification and GDP per capita). We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our approach and the country-level findings for advancing research in the field.

text: National identity and environmentalism: Why national narcissism might undermine pro-environmental efforts The extant literature recognizes national identity as a pivotal factor motivating both individual and collective actions to tackle environmental problems. Yet, prior research shows mixed evidence for the relationship between national identity and environmentalism. Here, we propose a theoretical approach that articulates distinctions between different forms of national identity and their differential associations with environmental attitudes and behaviors. Specifically, we argue that it is key to differentiate national identification, which reflects a positive attachment to one's country and ties to other compatriots, from national narcissism, which reflects viewing one's country as exceptional and deserving of special treatment. In contrast to national identification, national narcissism is consistently associated with lower environmental concern and predicts support for anti-environmental policies. We show that this is likely due to national narcissism being linked to belief in climate-related conspiracy theories, support for policies that challenge external pressures yet present the nation in a positive light (e.g., greenwashing), and focusing on short-term benefits for the nation. Extending past individual-level findings, we report a pre-registered analysis across 56 countries examining whether national narcissism is also linked to objective indices of lower environmental protection at the country level of analysis. Results revealed a negative relationship between countries' environmental performance and country-level national narcissism (while adjusting for national identification and GDP per capita). We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our approach and the country-level findings for advancing research in the field.

year: 2024

title: Faunal extinction and human habitation in New Caledonia: Initial results and implications of new research at the Pindai Caves

authors: Anderson, Atholl

subjects: New Caledonia

abstract: Archaeological and palaeontological investigations occurred in 2003 at the Pindai Caves in New Caledonia, where remains of prehistoric settlement exist in conjunction with the richest fossil deposits found to date on Grand Terre. Among more than 45 bird taxa in our excavations at least 20 that are locally or globally extinct are represented at levels immediately below or within the era of human occupation. These include the giant megapode, Sylviornis sp., the flightless swamphen, Porphyrio kukuwiedei, and other rails, a kagu, pigeons, a large snipe, Coenocorypha sp., several taxa of owls, a nightjar, and an owlet-nightjar. Unresolved problems in dating and taphonomy, however, make it difficult to specify the strength of cultural associations and thus the extent to which human activities were responsible for extinctions or extirpations. We present the first radiocarbon dates upon Sylviornis bone, showing that, at least, the species survived into the late Holocene. Relatively frequent occurrence of Sylviornis bone in the cultural levels, coupled with a radiocarbon date on a bone sample of about 3000 calBP make a case for human contact.

text: Faunal extinction and human habitation in New Caledonia: Initial results and implications of new research at the Pindai Caves Archaeological and palaeontological investigations occurred in 2003 at the Pindai Caves in New Caledonia, where remains of prehistoric settlement exist in conjunction with the richest fossil deposits found to date on Grand Terre. Among more than 45 bird taxa in our excavations at least 20 that are locally or globally extinct are represented at levels immediately below or within the era of human occupation. These include the giant megapode, Sylviornis sp., the flightless swamphen, Porphyrio kukuwiedei, and other rails, a kagu, pigeons, a large snipe, Coenocorypha sp., several taxa of owls, a nightjar, and an owlet-nightjar. Unresolved problems in dating and taphonomy, however, make it difficult to specify the strength of cultural associations and thus the extent to which human activities were responsible for extinctions or extirpations. We present the first radiocarbon dates upon Sylviornis bone, showing that, at least, the species survived into the late Holocene. Relatively frequent occurrence of Sylviornis bone in the cultural levels, coupled with a radiocarbon date on a bone sample of about 3000 calBP make a case for human contact.

year: 2010

title: Ghost Town

authors: Wrigley, David

abstract: Abstract

A hometown is a thing full of horrors.
Ghosts line the footpaths like spectators at an ANZAC Day parade. They leap from thickets and pounce from suburban ranch sliders like tom cats. 
These ghosts have been waiting for you. There are things they need you to remember. 
When David Wrigley returns to Cambridge, a town he thought he’d left behind him forever, he finds the ghosts are out in force. He stumbles on a note in his mother’s garage, tightly folded and hot to the touch, that sets him off in pursuit of the memory of Jacob Avonlea, a friend from the past who he has never been able to leave behind.
But the currents of memory are unpredictable, and the waters and riverbanks are crowded with the dead. David and Jacob’s friendship, which crackled with a boyish intensity and a surfeit of secrets, was just the first of many stories tussling for attention.
 There is a family history – a fifty year old cataclysm that destroyed his brother. 
The grotesque origins of the school that nurtured David and murdered Jacob. The eccentric founder who brought with him from the mill towns of Manchester a fear of women and a predilection for young boys. 
And then there is the land – the meanders of the Waikato and the eruptions that diverted it from one coast to another, leaving forgotten oxbows in its wake. The roaming forests of kahikateas that followed the river and the wetlands, and once dominated these landscapes but have now all but disappeared. The rich farmland that has usurped the forests and slowly leaks poison into the soil and the waterways.
Ghost Town is a psychogeographer’s novel. A novel in which the landscape and the people that live and act upon it are inseparable, the ghosts of one haunting the present of the other.  It is a story of colonial men, locked into cycles of violence and destruction. The story of the silence they have inflicted upon themselves and on their children, and ultimately on the landscape itself, as the forests retreat, the birdsong hushed.
As we drift downstream, at every bend of the river we can see through the ever-widening gaps in the trees, glimpses of lost futures– that different species of ghost. 
A free and autonomous Māori Waikato. 
A spring-fed lake full of eels and koura. 
Five hundred year old kahikateas growing arrow-straight into the distant blueness.
An egalitarian, socialist Aotearoa. 
A family man gathering his sons into his arms.
A man of forty six raising his eyes towards the swaying tree-tops and starting to sing.

text: Ghost Town Abstract

A hometown is a thing full of horrors.
Ghosts line the footpaths like spectators at an ANZAC Day parade. They leap from thickets and pounce from suburban ranch sliders like tom cats. 
These ghosts have been waiting for you. There are things they need you to remember. 
When David Wrigley returns to Cambridge, a town he thought he’d left behind him forever, he finds the ghosts are out in force. He stumbles on a note in his mother’s garage, tightly folded and hot to the touch, that sets him off in pursuit of the memory of Jacob Avonlea, a friend from the past who he has never been able to leave behind.
But the currents of memory are unpredictable, and the waters and riverbanks are crowded with the dead. David and Jacob’s friendship, which crackled with a boyish intensity and a surfeit of secrets, was just the first of many stories tussling for attention.
 There is a family history – a fifty year old cataclysm that destroyed his brother. 
The grotesque origins of the school that nurtured David and murdered Jacob. The eccentric founder who brought with him from the mill towns of Manchester a fear of women and a predilection for young boys. 
And then there is the land – the meanders of the Waikato and the eruptions that diverted it from one coast to another, leaving forgotten oxbows in its wake. The roaming forests of kahikateas that followed the river and the wetlands, and once dominated these landscapes but have now all but disappeared. The rich farmland that has usurped the forests and slowly leaks poison into the soil and the waterways.
Ghost Town is a psychogeographer’s novel. A novel in which the landscape and the people that live and act upon it are inseparable, the ghosts of one haunting the present of the other.  It is a story of colonial men, locked into cycles of violence and destruction. The story of the silence they have inflicted upon themselves and on their children, and ultimately on the landscape itself, as the forests retreat, the birdsong hushed.
As we drift downstream, at every bend of the river we can see through the ever-widening gaps in the trees, glimpses of lost futures– that different species of ghost. 
A free and autonomous Māori Waikato. 
A spring-fed lake full of eels and koura. 
Five hundred year old kahikateas growing arrow-straight into the distant blueness.
An egalitarian, socialist Aotearoa. 
A family man gathering his sons into his arms.
A man of forty six raising his eyes towards the swaying tree-tops and starting to sing.

year: 2023