18. Aesthetics and imaginaries of eco-activist movements.

Convenors
Massimiliano Guareschi, University of Milan-Bicocca
massimiliano.guareschi@unimib.it

Federico Smania, University of Milan-Bicocca
federico.smania@unimib.it

Addressing the relationship between ecology, climate change, and climate justice is an intricate knot that carries the risk of conflating various grievances into one large movement. While these differences marked by discursive discontinuities have been investigated, it remains an explorable terrain to understand how they generate different aesthetics that serve as a constitutive element of activist action. This, along with the discursive centrality of eco-environmentalism and climate activism, has caught the attention of sociological and anthropological research (Ingold, 2000; Latour, 2015; Ghosh, 2016) that has sought to understand their composition, discourses, internal dynamics, and external representations through words and symbolic structures capable of defining and conveying an imaginary.

Hence, what are the distinctive aesthetic traits of climate movements, and conversely, what stereotypes have been created in opposition to these movements? We are interested in ethnographic analyses (online and offline) that, through an intersectional perspective, reconstruct the distinctive narratives and counter-narratives of climate movements and the subjectivities that are part of them, or that reconstruct a genealogy of the imaginaries of these movements which references are more specific to territory-related struggles, and which are instead international traits. With this panel, we invite contributions that explore how different movements – from mainstream environmentalism to deep ecology, via posthumanism and ecofeminism – construct their visual and symbolic repertoires and how these aesthetics operate to forge collective identities, communicate grievances, and mobilize support. At the same time, we seek to understand how stereotypes and counter-narratives emerge in response to these representations, shaping public perception and debate.

Through ethnographic lenses, we are interested in examining how intersectionality, local contexts, and transnational connections inform the narratives, symbols, and aesthetics that define and differentiate climate justice movements globally. This approach will help unpack the diverse genealogies and theoretical frameworks that underpin these movements’ visual cultures, providing fresh insights into their evolving landscapes.

Open questions

  • How do forms of resistance manifest themselves in environmental activism and what strategies are adopted by movements?
  • What are the main counter-narratives that emerge in opposition to environmental activism and how do they develop?
  • How does the mainstream media represent climate activism and what implications does this representation have on public perception?
  • How do the anti-speciesist movement and veganism intersect with broader environmental and climate struggles?
  • What role does ecofeminism play within the environmental movement and how does it influence its practices and theories?
  • How can an intersectional perspective enrich our understanding of environmental activism and its different manifestations?
  • How are young green activists represented in the media and society, and how does this representation influence the movement?
  • What pedagogical approaches and representations of sustainability are used in youth education, and what effects do they have?

Keywords
climate change; environmental justice; social movements; deep ecology; aesthetics; climate crisis.

Sub-disciplines or cross-disciplinary areas
political ecology; cultural sociology; sociolinguistics; critical discourse analysis; sociology of the environment; cultural anthropology; sociology of the imagination.

References
Descola, P.
2005 Par-delà nature et culture. Paris: Gallimard.

Ghosh, A.
2016 The great derangement. Climate and the unthinkable. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

Ingold, T.
2000 The perception of the environment: essays on livelihood, dwelling and skill. London: Routledge.

Latour, B.
2015 Face à Gaïa. Huit conférences sur le nouveau régime climatique. Paris, La Découverte.

Pilgrim, S., J. Pretty (Eds)
2010 Nature and Culture: Rebuilding Lost Connections. London: Routledge.

Van Aken, M. I.
2020 Campati per aria. Milano: Eleuthera

Convenors’ bios
Massimiliano Guareschi is a sociologist based at the University of Milan-Bicocca. He is author of I volti di Marte: Raymond Aron teorico e sociologo della guerra (2010) and Going Underground: Stile, gusto e consume nelle sottoculture giovanili (2023); and with Federico Rahola he has co-authored Chi decide: Critica della ragione eccezionalista (2011) and edited Forme della città: Sociologia dell’urbanizzazione (2015).

Federico Smania is a PhD student in Urban Studies (URBEUR) in the Department of Sociology and Social Research at the University of Milan-Bicocca. His research focuses, in particular, on anti-Olympic discourses and collective action against mega-events.