Rachel MCARDLE, National University of Ireland Galway, Ireland
This article will look at how people are engaging with climate actions at a local and small-scale level. These everyday actions are not usually considered under the umbrella of climate activism but I argue that these practises play an important role in affecting how people feel about the climate crisis. Examples of these small-scale actions include an increase in thrifting clothes, buying bamboo products, saying no to disposable cutlery, bulk buying from zero-waste shops. This type of activism is different to larger-scale climate action like the Extinction Rebellion campaign, but there is one crucial similarity: both are trying to deal with the existential anxiety caused by the climate crisis. One objective of this research is to refocus the lens onto the local scale and onto those who may not necessarily identify as activists. Using the social media website Reddit, this research uses both a survey and qualitative interviews with participants who engage in these actions to understand more about their behaviours, motivations and overall if their actions impacts their feelings on the climate crisis. Based on adults living in Dublin, Cork and Galway, this research refocuses the lens onto the scale of the everyday and what Bayat has called ‘non movements’- actions that exist under the radar that can lead to greater change. I argue that we can broaden our understanding of climate activism if we broaden our understanding to include these everyday examples. This will further our understanding of how people are dealing with the climate crisis.
Mots clés : Climate|Climate change |Climate action|Everyday|Ireland
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