The environmental movement has stood out compared to other movements through its future-oriented pessimism: dreams of a better or utopian future have been less important as a mobilizing tool than fear of future catastrophes. Apocalyptic images of future catastrophes still dominate much of environmentalist discourse. Melting polar caps, draughts, hurricanes, floods, and growing chaos are regularly invoked by activists as well as establishment figures. This apocalyptic discourse has, however, also been challenged—not only by a future-oriented optimism gaining ground among established environmental organizations, but also by the rise of what we call a postapocalyptic environmentalism based on the experience of irreversible or unavoidable loss. This discourse, often referring to the Global South, where communities are destroyed and populations displaced because of environmental destruction, is neither nourished by a strong sense of hope, nor of a future disaster, but a sense that the catastrophe is already ongoing. Taking our point of departure in the “environmentalist classics” by Rachel Carson and Barry Commoner, we delineate the contours of apocalyptic discourses in environmentalism and discuss how disillusionment with the institutions of climate governance has fed into increasing criticism of the apocalyptic imagery. We then turn to exploring the notion of postapocalyptic politics by focusing on how postapocalyptic narratives—including the utopias they bring into play, their relation to time–space, and how they construct collective identity—are deployed in political mobilizations. We focus on two cases of climate activism—the Dark Mountain project and the International Tribunal for the Rights of Nature—and argue that mobilizations based on accepting loss are possible through what we call the paradox of hope and the paradox of justice.
In this paper I seek to clarify the relation between the notions of public space and the public sphere by distinguishing between two dimensions of publicnesscontestation and bracketing-in the classical notion of the public sphere as developed by Jurgen Habermas and Hannah Arendt. By clarifying this relation I aim to bring out how public space can be seen as the site of political practices distinct from those usually associated with the public sphere. That in turn will facilitate an understanding of why the idea of public space has been resorted to by activists and scholars to overcome limitations of the public sphere. On the basis of the two dimensions, I propose a distinction between two notions of public space, one centred on contestation and another on bracketing. I argue that both conceptions help articulate political practices that go beyond what is customarily allowed for in the deliberations of the public sphere: on the one hand, practices that visibilize dissent and expose inequalities and, on the other hand, practices that construct alternative arenas where marginal or subordinate people's self-confidence as political actors can be strengthened.
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