Writing differently
In the past few days I've been working on a chapter that I am contributing to a volume about human-nature relationships in the Nordics. I sketched parts of this chapter last year, and it felt odd to read the draft again. I still like the content and the messages of the chapter. What I found alienating when I was reading it again was the language. Even though I've been trying to write my academic contributions as simply as possible, at times I become aware that I'm not there yet. I want all my works to read the way this autoethnography reads. I want to write my academic papers and books the way I write emails and text messages to friends. It feels that using overly and unnecessarily complicated language only obscures things and alienates fellow humans. It creates divisions. To me writing differently feels like an important part of being of deep transformations.