(Re)considering Wellbeing for Climate-just Futures

In this blogpost, which is part of NORRAG’s blog series on Provocations for Education from Youth Climate Activism,  Sunita Lall and Kelly Gingrich describe a project with youth climate activists that focused on (re)considering what wellbeing could mean in climate-just futures, contributing to exploring creative and participatory climate pedagogies and research methodologies.

Introduction

Wellbeing is an increasingly important part of climate discourse, in a few different ways. Consideration of wellbeing during activism and organizing is being recognized as a critical prefigurative element in many spaces – a way to create the futures that we want in the here and now, not just in what we’re doing but in how we’re doing it. A focus on wellbeing in the context of climate despair and hope is a growing area of interest. For my Master’s research at the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change at York University studying climate education and degrowth, I (Kelly) was interested in reimagining ideas of wellbeing away from the individualistic and commodified cultural understandings we have of it here in Canada, and doing this reimagining with youth climate activists.

Degrowth is an emerging academic field and framework of movements that aims to reduce overproduction and overconsumption in countries in the Global North to lower emissions and the environmental and human costs of our overconsumptive lifestyles. By reducing our material use and reprioritizing our economies beyond economic growth and profit as societal goals, and towards wellbeing for all within ecological limits, degrowth is a broad framework for specific projects and visions that are place-based and contextually driven.

Climate education generally doesn’t tackle the issue of economic growth despite mounting evidence that economic growth, even “green growth” (i.e. continuing as we are but powered by renewables), will not meet the IPCC’s climate targets. Nor do green growth scenarios transform social relations for those producing or those consuming, across both the Global North and Global South, often reproducing colonial relationships.

Background on the Project

This project focused on (re)considering what wellbeing could mean in climate-just futures. Guiding this exploratory inquiry was the question of how youth climate activists understand wellbeing and how they are reimagining what wellbeing means. Do these perceptions align with ideas from degrowth? What can we learn for climate education and activism spaces from these ideas of wellbeing so that we might practice them as we learn and act? I am especially concerned with how climate education and activist spaces can become prefigurative of the futures that youth are fighting for, and where a plurality of worldviews, knowledges, and practices fit. Can how we think about wellbeing help us practice those futures in the here and now?

The Process

To understand activists’ perceptions of wellbeing in a climate-just future, three youth climate activists, including co-author, Sunita, were invited to create cellphilms: short films made on cell phones. The second part of the process was to hold a participatory analysis session, where participants led the coding and thematic analysis of the content of the group’s cellphilms, which gave rise to a very rich and critically reflective discussion among participants.

As I (Sunita) created my cellphilm, I learned a lot about myself and expanded my current knowledge of climate justice. I had created cellphilms before, but never in such a thoughtful, methodical way. During our sessions, Kelly would ask a question, e.g. “What does wellbeing look like in a climate-just future?” and participants had time to plan and film. My approach was to jot down ideas and record myself responding to the prompt. While I chose this method, we had creative license, so other participants did skits and interview-type cellphilms. We then presented our final projects to one another and analyzed them through group discussions. Providing each other with feedback was an integral part of our learning. This process exposed me to new perspectives and encouraged me to think critically about aspects of the climate crisis that I had never had before.

What We Learned

During Perceptions of Wellbeing Among Youth Climate Activists, I (Sunita) expanded upon my knowledge of fundamental concepts in the sphere of climate activism, such as holistic wellbeing, “The Three C’s” (connection, collaboration and cooperation), longtermism, justice, and interconnectedness.

• Holistic wellbeing is the idea that wellbeing can be interpreted in different ways and applied to all aspects of life. While discussing the climate crisis, this can include asking ourselves what self-care looks like for activists and how the wellbeing of the planet connects to that of our society.
• Connection, collaboration and communication, or “The Three C’s,” are the foundation of successfully addressing climate disparities and delivering critical messages to the public. These refer to the many forms of governance, organizing, and relating to one another that center relationality, presence, and transformative justice needed for bottom-up transformation and community-based action that works to avoid reproducing various kinds of harm and instead opens up new ways of being with one another and with the land.
• Longtermism involves taking our present actions into account and recognizing their effect on the future. The goal of longtermism is sustained wellbeing of people and the planet. This could include an individual modifying their lifestyle to reduce consumerism, a company promoting the circular economy, or any action that decreases our collective environmental impact.
• When applied to the climate crisis, justice is addressing issues that historically have been pushed aside, such as environmental racism or the impact of degradation on marginalized communities. Justice can also apply to climate change as a whole, with activists being heard and steps taken to address their concerns. Interconnectedness is similar to intersectionality in that it involves considering other social justice issues while discussing ideas and solutions to climate change. However, it also emphasizes connections outside of social justice and activism, such as the impact of green growth and the direct ties societal wellbeing has with environmental health.
• Finally, interconnectedness demonstrates that climate change should not be addressed in isolation, but rather with a holistic and inclusive approach. Over the course of the project, participants worked to apply these principles to their cellphilms.

Implications for Climate Activism and Education

Youth often feel a sense of anxiety and hopelessness when it comes to the climate crisis. However, projects such as the Perceptions of Wellbeing Among Youth Climate Activists engage youth by equipping them with the tools to manage those feelings and create positive change. When youth are given a voice, they have a chance to collaborate, innovate, and share their visions for a just, sustainable future. In the educational sphere, youth can learn more about themselves while improving their creativity and critical thinking skills through projects such as these. As well, cellphilm viewers can gain insight into different perspectives and learn about emerging leaders in the environmental sector. We offer this brief overview of the project to share both the content of what we learned (the “what”) and the methods we enacted (the “how”). Instead of increasing eco-anxiety through facts and statistics, educators and activists could use this arts-based project model to strike a balance between information and community-based, tangible action.

This project is a contribution to exploring more creative and participatory climate pedagogies and research methodologies. Weaving degrowth and climate change education theory and practice together can create spaces of prefigurative politics for degrowth transitions towards climate-just futures. The participants in this study arrived at many of the same conclusions that degrowth scholars have around prioritizing wellbeing over economic growth and material accumulation, albeit with different terminology. By introducing degrowth ideas – like wellbeing – climate change education can become potentially prefigurative towards degrowth economic transitions and shifting cultural norms, enabling broader work towards meaningful climate action.

The Authors:

Kelly Gingrich, MEd (Ontario Institute of Studies in Education), MES (York University), is a first year PhD Student in Environmental Studies at the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change at York University. She is currently studying environmental and climate change education as prefigurative, participatory, and place-based practices, with a particular interest in degrowth and climate justice. Her doctoral research focuses on bottom-up degrowth transitions, problematizing narratives of economic growth in climate education, and theorizing an education for degrowth.

Sunita Lall is a first year undergraduate student at the University of Toronto who is pursuing a double major in Conservation Biodiversity and Environmental Studies. Over the course of her involvement in activism starting at 14 years old, she has worked with local and national organizations to spearhead initiatives and raise awareness on pressing environmental issues. Her interests include wildlife and land conservation, environmental policy, public education, and the incorporation of the humanities into a scientific understanding of climate justice.