Ben Jones draws on his experience of being in a hardcore punk band and interviews the owner of Newport’s The Cab venue to explore the long-standing egalitarian ethos of the hardcore scene within working-class Welsh culture. He argues why this is more important than ever as austerity bites deeper, and the scape-goating of minorities takes hold.

How does lack of accessible transport within Wales drive young professionals out of their communities and contribute to rapid decline of towns and villages? Nuriya Aliyaskarova draws on her interviews with young people and a social work activist to gain an insight into the relationship between poor transport and population decline, and how people are negotiating tensions between attachment to their roots and their need for work.

Molly Clifford has created a piece of textile art and accompanying text inspired by the Wales Coast Path beyond Aberystwyth, and the power of the sea to erode the landscape and enhance mental health. The project is inspired by Planet’s long-running series Retracing Wales, which offered creative responses to the path.

As El Niño threatens to exacerbate climate change this year, Cai Davies offers his perspective on how green transition can become part of the nation-building process in devolved Wales, and concrete ways in which this effort could become as successful as the revival of the Welsh language in the previous century.

Catrin Lewis argues that moves to increase the number of MSs in the Senedd should be welcomed. However, she puts forward that the lack of discussion about Senedd reform as a whole in the public sphere overshadows the benefits Senedd expansion would bring to Welsh democracy.

Wales is now the first nation in the UK to include ethnic minority histories in its school curriculum. Can this initiative address the problem of racism in Welsh schools? Rohini Singh interviews Charlotte Williams and Natalie Jones to gain further insights into the extent to which this development could be transformative for creating an anti-racist society.

Karin Davies examines the various ways to say ‘I had’ in Welsh, and the contested ideas around what ‘standard’ forms of the language should be taught Wales-wide, as a starting point to look more broadly at what being Welsh means to different people, and what place the language has within national identity.

Gabriella Bosticco draws on her activism with sexual violence campaign groups to urge us to keep alive the resistance against rape culture and misogyny that emerged following the murder of Sarah Everard – raped and killed by an off-duty police officer in 2021. She splices together general reflections on all-too-common experiences of sexual violence survivors with semi-fictionalised stories inspired by individuals’ experiences and perspectives.

As restrictions ease and life returns supposedly to normal, Chahat Awasthi interviews a single mum from Merthyr Tydfil. How is ‘normality’ being experienced by mothers in a Wales beginning to emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic?

Yazmin Steelandt-Humphries gives her perspective on the implications of international law for climate change victims, a grim paradox that means those fleeing climate change are not currently defined as refugees, and a courageous attempt by young people affected by heatwaves to hold governments to account over emissions via the European Court of Human Rights.

Kate Wilson describes how mental health can be transformed through surfing, and what especially attracted her to Aberystwyth’s surfing culture during the pandemic.

Barney Lloyd-Wood gives an insight into how football fans are sustaining their support for Welsh independence in an era of on-going pandemic

Georgia Buchanan is inspired by Planet’s ‘Retracing Wales’ series to explore both the stunning coastline landscape around Newport, and her border identity. Image: Newport Wetlands and Nature Reserve © Georgia Buchanan

Dragons are probably the most important mythical symbols in both Chinese and Welsh culture, so what does the dragon mean for the people of these two dragon nations?

Johanna Farkas draws on her experience of being a Hungarian student at Aberystwyth University to reflect on the inequalities between nations, and how an iconic Welsh legend has had an important place in the history of Hungarian nationalism, from the period of Austrian rule until today.

Lauren Stenning draws on Planet’s Welsh Keywords series and her experience studying in Wales and Catalonia to reflect on the power of language ‘fluidity’ within bilingual culture, which also inspired her poem ‘Are you fluent?’.

Luisa De la Concha Montes interviews photographers from Wales about how the medium has developed across generations. Does David Hurn’s ‘spiderweb’ tool for understanding locality resonate today? And is there a common thread between the work of those photographers who came of age in the 1960s and those who are emerging now?

Aberystwyth University student Alice Hollingsworth-Hallett reflects on the fate of the seaside village of Fairbourne in Gwynedd, which will be the first community in the UK to be decommissioned and relocated due to climate change. She relates the wider political dilemmas this issue throws up, and the devastating impact on local residents.

Christian Phelps draws on his experience of moving from Wisconsin to Cardiff, his work with urban Welsh LGBTQ+ activism, and interviews with activists in rural Wales to ask whether with its new LGBTQ+-inclusive school curriculum, Wales can become a global model for uplifting LGBTQ+ communities.

Faith Clarke draws on her experiences of interviewing people in Cardiff for a film project on women and austerity to argue that cuts to government spending mark a profound shift away from solidarity and towards a callous re-definition of ‘fairness’.

Aberystwyth University student Kelly Gomes relates her experience of being the child of Portuguese parents, and how the unique position of second-generation immigrants needs to be reflected upon as the UK prepares to leave the EU.

Inspired by Planet’s Retracing Wales series of creative responses to the coast path, Cardiff University student Elizabeth Facer reflects back on an intriguing island on the estuary just below her hometown, and how its identity crisis mirrors her own…

Cardiff University student Alexandra Banfi draws on Postcolonial theory and the historical legacy of quasi-colonialism in Wales to reflect on how delusions of imperial grandeur still inform Britishness, and how this fed into Wales’ decision to leave the EU.

Aberystwyth University student Nina Byrom offers a uniquely uncanny short story inspired by the history of the town’s funicular railway. This feature is published as part of Aberystwyth University’s Ambassadorship scheme and hosting partnership with Planet.

Songtao Lin, a student from China, visited Tafwyl Festival and St Fagans National Museum of History, reflecting on his own experience and talking to friends with cultural roots from around the world about what Welshness means to them.

Laura Stevens is inspired by the Planet series Retracing Wales, in which writers responded to different sections of the Wales Coast Path, to reflect in words and images on the contrasting landscapes and seascapes of Cardiff and her hometown Southampton.

Student and agricultural worker Bethan Evans gives a personal reflection on how widespread mental health crises are among people in rural Wales, and also among young people at university. She proposes how the Welsh Government can do more to help alleviate mental health problems.

Laura Davies is inspired by the Planet series Retracing Wales, in which writers responded to different sections of the Wales Coast Path, to reflect on how both Welsh and English shores have shaped her identity, as a person of Welsh heritage growing up over the border.

Our Aberystwyth University Student Ambassador Fraya Lee Reynolds gives a personal response to an article in Planet on refugee history in Wales, drawing on her experience of living in Aberystwyth during the current refugee crisis.

Maria Aguado draws on her experience of Iberian cuisine to explore the food cultures of people from Spain living in Cardiff.

Cardiff University masters student Yupei Wang reflects on her year living in Wales, drawing on her experience of growing up in a part of China with its own distinctive language, landscape and culture.

Drawing on her visit to Planet’s office in the Old College on Aberystwyth’s seafront, Cardiff University student Megan Potterton imagines the myriad sounds, sights and seascapes which can be experienced from the promenade across different seasons, in the latest contribution to Planet Platform

Cardiff University Student Charlotte Clark responds to Gillian Clarke's poem 'Cardiff Elms'.

Aberystwyth University Student Ambassador Jazmine Codrington gives a personal response to a Planet article celebrating LGBT identity and Wales from 1999 by Mike Parker. How much have attitudes shifted in the last 18 years?

Third-year undergraduate Kathryn Morgan responds to themes of family, belonging and nostalgia in recent issues of Planet, drawing on her family history as a grandchild of Welsh emigrants to Canada and her current experience of living in Cardiff.

Third-year undergraduate Greg Taylor responds to our series ‘Welsh Keywords’ which, inspired by Raymond Williams’ Keywords, offers contemporary perspectives on contested meanings of words in Welsh, and how these shifting meanings continue to shape our society.

A stunning visual contribution by Bethany E. Williams, the latest contributor to our Aberystwyth University ILLCA Student Ambassador Scheme. Bethany gives her artistic perspective on ‘Retracing Wales’, our series of creative responses in Planet magazine to the Wales Coast Path by some of Wales’s leading writers and artists.

Masters student Natalie Cox responds to ‘Retracing Wales’, our series of creative responses to the Wales Coast Path, which go astray from the usual tourism and heritage script.

Third-year undergraduate Kevin Hudson responds to ‘Retracing Wales’, our series of creative responses to the Wales Coast Path, which go astray from the usual tourism and heritage script.