We inhabit a world of more than humans. For life to flourish, we must listen to the calls this world makes on us, and respond with care, sensitivity and judgement. That is what it means to correspond, to join our lives with those of the beings, matters and elements with whom, and with which, we dwell upon the earth. And it is to bring to them the same affection, longing and care that, in the days when we used to write letters by hand, we would bring to our correspondences with one another. At a time of environmental crisis, when words so often seem to fail us, the practice of correspondence can help restore our kinship with a stricken earth. 

Tim Ingold is a British social anthropologist, currently Chair of Social Anthropology at the University of Aberdeen. He was educated at Leighton Park School and Cambridge University. He is a fellow of the British Academy and of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His bibliography includes The Perception of the Environment: Essays in Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill, Routledge, 2000, which is a collection of essays, some of which had been published earlier.