When global problems come home: Engagement with climate change within the intersecting affective spaces of parenting and activism

Howard, Lisa

doi:10.1016/j.emospa.2022.100894

Cited by 9 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…To contextualise this study’s findings of concealing one’s activist self, strategic disidentification from radical activism within other contexts was evident across the dataset. Even though a large proportion of participants were involved in direct actions, many distanced themselves from a strident activist image in favour of a parent identity because they felt the milder image of ‘normal’ parents with ‘normal everyday concerns’ would be more effective in connecting with politicians and the public, particularly given recent negative media and public discourse around Extinction Rebellion direct actions (Howard, 2022). This was buttressed by a cultural backdrop of negative views of radical forms of social movement activism more generally (Roth, 2016).…”

Section: Maintaining Silence: Concealing One’s Activist Selfmentioning

confidence: 99%

Breaking climate justice ‘silence’ in everyday life: The environmentalist killjoy, negotiation and relationship risk

Howard

2023

The Sociological Review

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The moral and justice dimensions of climate change are uncomfortable and commonly avoided in the conversations of day-to-day UK life. This ‘silence’ impedes the genesis of a public discourse to drive justice-oriented social and political change. Two social realms identified as silence-breaking are social movements and personal relationships, yet the potential of this intersection has yet to be explored. This article applies Goffman’s theories of interaction to a qualitative study of UK-based climate activists to show how silence around climate justice is often a means to avoid relationship conflict, and the ways in which this is negotiated within everyday interactions. Activist participants faced conversational resistance through normative avoidance of climate-related death talk, and from negative environmental activist stereotyping. In efforts to protect relationships while promoting their climate politics, participants backgrounded their activist identity, slowly ‘chipped away’ at climate obstruction through social and sustainable practices, and prioritised humour. Breaking silences required taking relationship risks through radical environmentalist ‘killjoy-talk’: a deliberate, politicised transgression of polite conversation norms. The article reflects on the normativities and loci of power discursively obstructing a moral engagement, and the potential for activists’ practical and discursive strategies to work against these to normalise politicised climate talk.

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Section: Maintaining Silence: Concealing One’s Activist Selfmentioning

confidence: 99%

Breaking climate justice ‘silence’ in everyday life: The environmentalist killjoy, negotiation and relationship risk

Howard

2023

The Sociological Review

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“…All but one study had been published in the last 7 years (2017-2023), and more than half (15) had been published during 2022 or 2023. Basic characteristics of included papers can be found in Table 1 [7,25,[28][29][30][31][32][33]35,46,[53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67].…”

Section: Overview Of Literature Characteristicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…All papers reviewed named concern about climate change as a source of emotional distress for parents, describing emotions that ranged from anxiety and worry to hopelessness and despair (see Figure 2) [7,25,[28][29][30][31][32][33]35,46,[53][54][55][56][59][60][61][62][63][64][65]68].…”

Section: Theme #1: Emotional Distress As Moral Injurymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Those that explored qualitative aspects of parents' emotional experience painted a picture of moral injury [31,32,46,[53][54][55]61,62,64,65,68] Moral injury is the experience of psychological harm resulting from witnessing or engaging in actions that violate an individual's core moral values or beliefs [69,70], or from "betrayal by a trusted leader or authority [69]." In a landmark paper addressing the extraordinary burden of cli- to be a failure of human rights and a failure of ethical responsibility to care, leading to moral injury [18]."…”

Section: Theme #1: Emotional Distress As Moral Injurymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…"For Sophia, concerns about 'societal breakdown, lots of death across the world, large parts of land underwater' were a scenario impossible to ignore [62]. "…”

Section: Theme #1: Emotional Distress As Moral Injurymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

What Are the Impacts of Concern About Climate Change on the Emotional Dimensions of Parents’ Mental Health? A Literature Review

Bechard

Silverstein

Walke

2023

Preprint

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Validation of the Hogg Climate Anxiety Scale

Hogg,

Stanley,

O’Brien

2024

Climatic Change

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As one of the biggest environmental and equality challenges of our time, climate change is causing some people to experience climate anxiety. To address the need for valid and reliable measurement of this construct, we adapted the Hogg Eco-Anxiety Scale to measure climate anxiety in the United Kingdom (n = 501) and United States (n = 508). In both samples, we found the Hogg Climate Anxiety Scale (HCAS) was comprised of four dimensions: affective symptoms, behavioural symptoms, ruminative thoughts, and anxiety about one’s personal impact. The four-factor HCAS fit the data well, showed measurement invariance in these two samples, and all dimensions were internally consistent. Importantly, we also provide evidence for convergent validity by demonstrating that HCAS scores were positively correlated with an alternative measure of eco-anxiety and a more general indicator of worry in one’s daily life. The dimensions of the HCAS also showed distinct associations with theoretically related constructs, for example only personal impact anxiety and rumination were significant predictors of taking collective action on climate change, and personal impact anxiety was distinctly predictive of climate inequality beliefs. We recommend the HCAS as a brief (13 item) measurement tool to capture experiences of climate anxiety.

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When global problems come home: Engagement with climate change within the intersecting affective spaces of parenting and activism

Cited by 9 publications

References 41 publications

Breaking climate justice ‘silence’ in everyday life: The environmentalist killjoy, negotiation and relationship risk

Breaking climate justice ‘silence’ in everyday life: The environmentalist killjoy, negotiation and relationship risk

What Are the Impacts of Concern About Climate Change on the Emotional Dimensions of Parents’ Mental Health? A Literature Review

Validation of the Hogg Climate Anxiety Scale

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