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The Centre on Social Movement Studies

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Jochen Kleres – “Emotions and Climate Activism”

On May 11th 2017, at 3 p.m., Jochen Kleres (Scuola Normale Superiore) will present a paper entitled “Emotions and Climate Activism”

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This presentation focuses on several aspects of the role of emotions in global climate activism. One aspect is how some of the emotional bases of climate activism are co-produced in movement-related spaces such as the UN climate summits (COP) and the Youth activist conferences (COY) that precede them. Site-specific feeling rules combine into emotional regimes that shape climate activism and variously emphasize e.g. rationality, a sense of emergency and boredom at COP, or transnational solidarity or love at COY. Focusing on the space and the organization of the events brings into relief how these emotional regimes are conveyed. Secondly, I will focus specifically on the role of fear, hope, and anger in climate activism in order to understand how activists balance different emotions in order to produce and sustain activism. Finally, differences between activists from the global North vs. South highlight how climate activism may or may not be aligned with postpolitical, consensus-oriented depoliticizing discourse.

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