The Routledge Handbook of Grassroots Climate Activism introduces contemporary forms of grassroots climate activism from around the world through the lenses of a variety of academic disciplines, methodologies, and perspectives. Focusing on bottom-up case studies, it showcases innovative and creative approaches, as well as the knowledge of those working towards swift decarbonisation, just transitions, and climate justice.
Grassroots climate activism presents a rich body of material to be studied not only by anthropologists, sociologists, geographers, and political scientists but also by scholars in the humanities and the creative arts. This timely handbook explores climate activism across six continents, and it provides perspectives from climate activists themselves. The authors interrogate a range of key questions: what forms of mobilisation, organisation, and practice constitute grassroots climate activism, and how have these changed over the last decade? What are the boundaries of the climate movement and how does it interact with, or differ from, other social movements? How do activists engage with the moral dimensions of the climate crisis? How do grassroots engagements with climate struggles give shape to plural, site-specific, but nonetheless interconnected, forms of climate activism? What tools do climate activists use to create functioning and effective local, national, and transnational networks? How has climate activism been impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic? What is the relationship between critical scholarship and climate activism? What methodologies are particularly effective for studying climate activism, and why?
This handbook aims to inspire others to devote more attention to grassroots climate activism. It brings together established and up-and-coming scholars, scholar-activists, and practitioners who present novel, cutting-edge research and new findings exploring current developments in different parts of the world. This book will be of particular interest to students and scholars of climate activism, climate solutions, climate and society, human-environmental crises, grassroots activism, and social movements. It will also be of interest to practitioners involved in climate action and to all those who are ready to launch their own grassroots initiatives, or support one of the many already underway.
Table of Contents:
1. Grassroots Climate Activism Across Six Continents Part I: Accounts from the Ground: The Fight for Climate Justice Introduction 2. NoDAPL and the continued fight for Tribal Self-Determination by Federally Recognized Indian Tribes in the United States 3. Indigenous Climate Justice and Epistemic Politics in Amazonia 4. Brazilian Grassroots Climate Activism in Unequal Waterscapes 5. Pacific Youth and Climate Activism: Safeguarding Our Fa’asinomaga 6. Realising Common Ground: Custodianship of Country and Youth Climate Action. 7. Action, Inertia, and the Stories that Get us Moving Part II: Climate Artivism Introduction 8. Climate Activism and Attunement through Creative Practices 9. A Contemplative Pedagogy of Listening 10. The Sonic Work of Transnational Youth Climate Movements 11. Performing Transformative Climate Justice 12. Turning a Leaf: Climate Activism in English-language Writing 13. Wild Hope and Curatorial Activism Part III: Diverse Modes of Organising Different Constituencies Introduction 14. Nanna Mobilities: Environmental Policy and Protest Movements in Australia and the UK 15. Young People’s Climate Activism 16. Pandemic Possibilities: The Corona Crisis as Perceived Opportunity and Threat for Climate Activists 17. Youth Climate Activists’ Practices on Social Media in Belgium and France 18. Challenging Politics to Do (and Be) Better: Young People’s Climate Activism Role in the Italian Political Landscape 19. Christian Communities as Climate Champions Part IV: Civil Disobedience and Litigation vs Criminalising and Politicising Climate Activism Introduction 20 Extinction Rebellion and Non-Violent Civil Disobedience 21. System Change, Not Climate Change: The Climate Justice Movement in Germany 2008-2022 22. Unburnable Coal and Unlabelled Climate Activism in China 23. Beyond Protest: How Legal Actions Drive Climate Justice 24. ‘Academic Freedom’ v Climate Change Denial: How the Politics of Research Funding Shape the Possibilities for Researching Grassroots Activism Part V: Grassroots Critical Perspectives on Climate Actions Introduction 25. Grassroots Climate Activism in North Africa: Local, Personal and Radical 26. Climate Change Infrastructures and Transnational Activist Networks 27. Community-Led Responses to Climate-Induced Disasters in Zimbabwe: Towards a Politico-Community-Based Model 28. Climate Activism and Environmental Politics in Mongolia 29. Grassroots vs Greenwashing: The Climate Movement and Animal Agriculture Part VI: Fighting Against False Solutions and Prefiguring Alternatives Introduction 30. No Greenwashing of Fossil Gas - Creating a Grassroots Transatlantic Climate Bridge Against False Solutions 31. Climate Activism and the Political-Economic Landscape in Nigeria 32. Grounding the Global Climate Movement: Eco-socialist militancy and Neo-rural experimentations in the present Environmental Activism in Italy 33. Promise Motivation: Films that Encourage Grassroots Climate Activism 34. Insider Climate Activism: Slowing Down or Speeding Up to Decarbonize? Part VII: Epistemological Questions and New Praxis Introduction 35. Knowledge in the Frame: The Epistemology of Extinction Rebellion 36. Convening Climate Activism in Canada: Conflicting Expertise and the Production of the Problem 37. Climate Activism in K-12 Formal Education Across North American Contexts 38. People Powered Climate Justice: Challenges and Possibilities in Engaging Activists in Strategic Capacity Building 39. Building Regenerative Cultures in Extinction Rebellion Activism and Academic Research 40. A Future Through Climate Activism: An Outlook Index
About the Author :
Sabine von Mering is Director of the Center for German and European Studies, Professor of German and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and a core faculty member in the Environmental Studies Program at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, USA.
Thomas E. Bell has a PhD in social anthropology from the University of Kent, UK, where he is an associate lecturer at the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology.
Alexandre da Silva Faustino has a PhD in urban geography completed at the School of Global, Urban, and Social Studies, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia, and is a member of The Alliance for Praxis Research.
Wendy Steele is Professor of Sustainability and Critical Urban Governance in the Centre for Urban Research at RMIT University, Australia and co-Chair of Future Earth Australia (FEA).
Ann Ward has a PhD in sociology from Brandeis University, USA and works at the Office of Sustainability at Tufts University, USA.
Mariana Arjona Soberón is a PhD candidate at the Rachel Carson Center and the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the Ludwig-Maximilian-University of Munich, Germany.
Review :
"Just what we have needed: a global, diverse, and accessible must-have collection for anyone who studies, teaches or is active in the climate movement."
Juliet B. Schor, Professor of Sociology, Boston College, US.
"An incredible resource for activists and activists-to-be."
Luisa Neubauer, climate activist, co-founder of the Fridays for Future youth climate movement in Germany, and co-author of Beginning to End the Climate Crisis. A History of Our Future (2023).
"In Brazil, across the Latin American continent and globally, grassroots climate activism movements are fighting for justice. They fight to overcome historical inequalities. They fight for processes of decoloniality. They fight for racialized and urbanized communities to be heard, and their rights respected, protected and fulfilled. Therefore, this handbook makes a significant academic and political contribution to shed light and resituate the knowledge production process itself. And to understand the achievements of activist movements, opening new possibilities for thinking and acting."
Renata Bovo Peres, Professor of Environmental Sciences and Urban Planning at Federal University of Sao Carlos (UFSCar), Brazil.
"This multidisciplinary approach to the study of grassroots climate activism is full of hopeful case studies of what we can do to address the wicked problem of climate change."
Annette Kehnel, Chair of Medieval History, University of Mannheim, Germany and author of The Green Ages. Medieval Innovations in Sustainability.
"Each of us can make a difference in the climate movement. This book shows us how."
Betty Lai, Associate Professor in Counseling Psychology at Boston College and author of The Public Scholar (forthcoming from Princeton University Press).
“This book, brimming with ideas, offers activists, practitioners and academics a much needed critical climate praxis.”
Julian Agyeman, Professor, Tufts University, USA.
"A must-read primer for anyone seeking to navigate the ever-increasing multiplicity of diverse and emergent forms of climate activism. A remarkable achievement."
Professor Rob Fish, Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London.
