Making and unmaking political subjectivities

Climate justice, activism, and care

Bibliographic Data

ID8963752
AuthorsSharon Bond (0000-0003-0460-5114, Te Iho Whenua School of Geography Te Whare Wānanga o Otāgo University of Otago Ōtepoti Dunedin New Zealand, corresponding author), Amanda Thomas (0000-0003-4048-0347, School of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington Wellington New Zealand), Gradon Diprose (0000-0001-5394-9410, Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research Wellington New Zealand)
Year2020
Volume45
Issue4
Pages750-762
Publication date2020-03-06
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueTransactions of the Institute of British Geographers (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0020-2754 • E-ISSN: 1475-5661
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/tran.12382
OpenAlexW3010398641
LanguageEN
Citations received30
References cited46

Much recent work on climate justice and activism focuses on the broader socio‐political economic contexts in which contestation occurs. These contestatory spaces in neoliberalised economies are frequently depoliticised through a variety of processes, strategies, practices, and actors. Recently this has been framed as the post‐political – whereby dissent is legitimised as “democratic” only when it does not challenge the status quo of business‐as‐usual. Most of the analysis and commentary on the post‐political has focused on policy or democratic decision‐making processes and conflict at relatively broad scales, rather than nuanced empirical case studies. In this paper we draw on an empirical case study to explore how processes of delegitimisation affect climate justice activists in emotional and personal ways. We argue that while the political subjectivities of climate justice activists are fragile achievements, a key aspect that sustains them is an ethic of care for humans and non‐humans, both near and more distant, who are affected by climate change. Fostering this ethic of care is one key way for climate activists to continue enacting responsibility for climate justice in a way that contests depoliticising and delegitimisation processes

Climate change · Climate justice · Democracy · Dissent · Economic Justice · Environmental ethics · Environmental justice · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Status quo · Climate Change Communication and Perception · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Law · Youth Education and Societal Dynamics

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