Monday 16 November, 1:00pm – 2:00pm, via Zoom. Please contact Dinesh Wadiwel for Zoom details.

Abstract

Climate change is transforming all aspects of society; some more rapidly and visibly than others. However, climate change and our human identities and subjectivities are not often considered to be co-constitutive. Yet bringing attention to these inter-relationships demonstrates that not only do our bodies, practices, cultures, technologies and institutions contribute to what the climate becomes, climate’s dynamism also contributes to the socio-ecological relationships we are enmeshed in, and thus, who we are and who we can become. The ecological distress that the climate crisis generates is one mechanism through which these processes of becoming (with) climate are currently unfolding. In this presentation, Blanche discusses the nascent collective and ecological identities emerging through young people’s anxiety-fuelled climate movements, and their promising potential to contribute to more climate just futures.

Bio

Blanche Verlie is a postdoctoral researcher in the Sydney Environment Institute and the Department of Sociology and Social Policy. Blanche has a multidisciplinary background and works at the intersections between climate change, gender, culture, education, science studies, justice, emotions, affect and the more-than-human world. She is currently writing a book called Learning to live with climate change, to be published by Routledge in 2021.

School Strike 4 Climate on Flickr.