When I got home to the UK, I carried stories of pollution and ancestral neglect with me. They stayed with me and began to take on new meanings as I continued my research on toxic pollution and environmental injustice. I learned that in Chinese folk religious beliefs, neglected ancestors become hungry ghosts, unleashing misfortune and environmental destruction.

As the climate crisis intensified, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the hungry ghosts somehow embodied collective experiences of climate grief, illness and anxiety.