Constructing the 'Good Environmental Citizen': Exploring Young Activists' Narratives of Climate Change and Environmental Citizenship
Event Title
XVIII Phd Meeting in Psychology
Year (definitive publication)
2023
Language
English
Country
Portugal
More Information
--
Web of Science®
This publication is not indexed in Web of Science®
Scopus
This publication is not indexed in Scopus
Google Scholar
This publication is not indexed in Google Scholar
This publication is not indexed in Overton
Abstract
Psychological studies on climate change (CC) have predominantly focused on psychological barriers to action and on individuals as consumers. Therefore, it has been overlooked how individuals as citizens align with or contest institutionally defined CC meanings, and through which narratives they make sense of CC and construct the “good environmental citizen” - its rights, duties, and goals. These narratives and the models of environmental citizenship they incorporate (liberal, civic, agonistic) are highly consequential for the CC debate. Lately, young people have had a pivotal role in this debate. However, so far, it is still lacking an analysis that seeks to understand the different CC narratives young people are constructing, the environmental citizenship views they advance, and their links with the different types of youth activism. We address this gap through interviews with young activists (16-30 years old; n=25), engaged in dutiful (e.g., being a green party or NGO member) and disruptive (e.g., direct action) forms of participation. The narrative analysis of interviews looks at (1) how participants define the values, rights and duties of the “good environmental citizen” – namely, whether they align with civic, liberal, or agonistic models; (2) how different narratives have different temporalities (e.g., regressive, progressive) and privilege different actors, roles (e.g., citizens as individual consumers or citizen groups taking action), and themes (e.g., system change or incremental reforms), thus legitimizing or contesting different types of climate responses. The different societal and climate action paths and future visions imagined by these narratives will be discussed.
Acknowledgements
--
Keywords
Português