Blurring the ‘-ism’ in youth climate crisis activism: everyday agency and practices of marginalized youth in the Brazilian urban periphery

Abstract

This paper reflects upon the everyday agency of marginalized youth in the Brazilian urban periphery in responding to the climate crisis. In the context of the global covid-19 crisis, which has exacerbated patterns of social exclusion between urban centers and peripheries, we reflect on the extent to which current theorizations of youth activism are appropriate for understanding youth agency in the periphery of Sao Paulo. We seek to 'blur the-ism' in climate activism by introducing more multi-faceted understandings of agency based on young people's everyday (inter-)actions with their environment as well as their contradicting emotions regarding their vulnerabilities and potential.

Just Adapt: Engaging Disadvantaged Young People in Planning for Climate Adaptation

“…While further research and a larger sample of participants is required, this exploratory study does provide evidence of the suitability of adaptation planning as an arena that young people in the classroom can actively engage with. Following on from Börner et al (2020), we suggest it is important to ensure that such educational interventions for engaging with climate change adaptation focus, at least initially, on what matters to the participants. This requires a collaborative process comprising dialogical and reciprocal interaction.…”

“…However, public participation in climate change adaptation planning is often limited in practice (Hügel & Davies, 2020). In response, an expanding stream of research is exploring ways to increase the capacities, resources and agency of young people (Börner, Kraftl, & Giatti, 2020;Hansen et al, 2013;Haynes & Tanner, 2015), with Osborne (2015) making a powerful argument that in order to understand vulnerability to climate change it is necessary to incorporate not only the multiple factors that shape identity and power, but also the intersectionality of these factors. In particular contexts researchers have sought to improve the adaptive capacities of 'at risk' youth communities in relation to climate change (see Haynes & Tanner, 2015), but calls for greater youth participation-and particularly participation amongst disadvantaged groups-in adaptation planning remain (e.g., Treichel, 2020).…”

“…In particular contexts researchers have sought to improve the adaptive capacities of 'at risk' youth communities in relation to climate change (see Haynes & Tanner, 2015), but calls for greater youth participation-and particularly participation amongst disadvantaged groups-in adaptation planning remain (e.g., Treichel, 2020). Researchers are keen to move beyond rhetoric which characterizes seeing young people as only 'victims,' and to highlight the important roles they play in shaping society through the expression of their views and as everyday change agents (Börner et al, 2020). While they are unable to vote, young people through their social practices, whether that is eating, heating or protesting, can affect their localities.…”

Young people’s everyday climate crisis activism: new terrains for research, analysis and action

“…Walker (2020a) argues that their immigrant backgrounds may encompass inter alia experiences of carrying everyday practices from one country to another, navigating multiple cultures and negotiating intergenerational disputes, provide critical opportunities for understanding the role of inter-cultural encounters and dialogue in (diversifying) everyday climate responses. Similarly, Börner, Kraftl, and Giatti (2020), through their reflections on research with youth in Brazil, discuss how the unique circumstances and challenges facing young people in global South urban peripheries, whether it is in contexts of poverty, the current COVID-19 pandemic, or positioning in institutional and adult arenas, allow us to 'see' and understand young people's climate crisis activism in more multi-faceted ways, some of which we highlight below.…”

“…Nolas (2021), in her critique of publics discrediting, or being surprised by the (environmental) acts of children, argue that 'listening' to children has agentic capacities, allowing us to be moved by their actions, and recognising children's concern for the non-human world. The papers by Börner, Kraftl, and Giatti (2020), Ojala (2020) and Nolas (2021) open up new understandings of the way in which young people's climate crisis activism is simultaneously constitutive of and constituted by a myriad of non-human agencies that are otherwise effaced by assumptions that young people and their contexts can be meaningfully talked about as separate entities. Moreover, the authors show that by adopting a post-humanist perspective, exploring the agentic capabilities of particular phenomena, researchers are more likely to 'discover' the realities of young people and uncover more pluralistic notions of agency, which do not fall into the stereotype of 'heroic practices'.…”