“Radical kindness”: the young climate activists transforming democracy

Bowman, Benjamin ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2866-1612, Kishinani, Pooja, Pickard, Sarah and Smith, Marion (2023) “Radical kindness”: the young climate activists transforming democracy. In: Youth Political Participation. Youth Knowledge, 29 . Council of Europe and European Commission, Brussels, pp. 15-33. ISBN 9789287192394

Preview

Published Version Available under License In Copyright. Download (487kB) | Preview

Abstract

Young people are leading the call for action on climate change. Young people’s visions for democratic change, and movements like the Fridays For Future school climate strikes are inspiring new approaches to democratic participation and new ideas/notions about the role of young people in society. In this chapter, we explore the visions for democratic change among young people. In our studies of the current wave of youth-led environmental activism that began in 2018, we have observed that young people’s environmental activism emphasises an ethics of intersectional justice, solidarity and care. Moreover, this activism tends to take place within fluid networks that foster internal democracy and aspire to horizontalism: they are networks of mutual support rather than leadership, in which sharing and collaboration coexist with more traditional political aims and demands. We posit that the ethics, structure and actions of much of young people’s environmental activism are characterised by a combination of features that we call “radical kindness”, a term used by a young environmental activist/demonstrator in our interview research.