Environmental folklore as a vernacular code of sustainability: the case of Estonian lakes

The usefulness of traditional environmental folklore as a tool for approaching the issues of sustainability in modern contexts has not yet been sufficiently highlighted. However, knowing vernacular psychological, sensory, emotional, and narrative aspects of environment-related behavior is essential to understand the reactions of people and to predict these. As the values of today’s society are based on the traditional perception of the world, and the principles of sustainable nature use are vividly represented in the corpus of Estonian lake folklore, the author will focus on the ways how this material communicates causes and indicators of environmental problems and ways for preventing or managing these. Using qualitative content and context analysis, she will point out specific patterns, e.g., agency related to responsible mutuality in the relationships between humans as biosocial beings and lakes. She will discuss in what ways can lake folklore that is usually related to a particular local ecosystem be useful in addressing global environmental problems, and how can such traditional knowledge be used as model for efficient communication and proactive behavior in the contexts of today’s environmental risks and insecurities.