Session organisers: Ed Atkins, University of Bristol (ed.atkins@bristol.ac.uk) and Filippo Menga, Università degli Studi di Bergamo (filippo.menga@unibg.it)
Instructions for prospective authors: Abstracts of 250 words should be emailed to Ed Atkins (ed.atkins@bristol.ac.uk) and Filippo Menga (filippo.menga@unibg.it) by Friday 18th March 2022.
The global pandemic in an era of climate awareness has resulted in numerous promises and pledges of a ‘green’ recovery that will ‘build back better’. Yet, geographies and visions of recovery are often dictated by the institutions and people in power. They get to define how a recovery is ‘green’ and who it might be ‘better’ for. They will even define what is to be ‘built’ and what should be ‘recovered’.
It is necessary to explore how these visions have been – and will be – influenced by the continued rise and prominence of populist leaders and movements. Populism, climate change, and environmental problems and solutions intersect in variegated ways. Right-wing populist movements might link environmental issues to nativist, militarist, or nostalgic elements (to name a few), and/or climate denial. Left-wing variants may highlight contemporary or intergenerational injustice(s) and confront authoritarian projects. All have cultural, political, or economic roots and resonant for divergent, if overlapping, constituencies, histories, and grievances.
Across this continuum, environmental and climate issues and policies have become rearticulated within populist projects. A ‘green recovery’ comes to emphasise certain visions of post-recovery and delimit others. Problems and solutions are defined or narrowed. Some groups and communities are included, others remain excluded. Environmental and climate change becomes another terrain of the ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ opposition that animates many populist projects.
This panel welcomes papers that explore how populist leaders and movements (including right- and left-wing variants) across the globe are articulating links between their political projects and motivations and broader societal hopes and fears related to environmental and climate change. We also welcome papers on the consequences of such visions – and how they might be contested. Contributions might be related to (but not limited to) the following themes:
- Climate change: including denial of, responsibility for, mitigation of, or adaptation and vulnerability to.
- Decarbonisation: including energy systems, net-zero ambitions, land-use, transportation.
- Borders: including migration, eco-fascism, nationalism, white supremacy.
- Movements: including climate movements and activism, or movements against climate policy and its uneven impacts.
- Histories: including the roots of populist demands, or historical movements with lessons for today.
- Futures: including speculative futures, eco-anxiety and anger at climate injustice(s), and colliding visions of what might or should be.
Filippo Menga 