Life trajectories of youth committing to climate activism

Abstract

This article draws from a study investigating the life trajectories of 17 youth climate activists from 14 countries through semi-structured, life memory interviews using Internet-based methods. The interpretations of the interviews focus on the ways in which participants constructed the meanings and functions of experiences and how they represented the nature of the process of their committing to climate activism. Included in the interpretations are the nature of moments of consciously committing, the role of both concern for nature and for social justice, the dynamic and ceaseless process of committing, and the role of the youth climate movement. The discussion highlights the uniqueness of youth and of climate change in the process of committing. The research contributes to the limited but important literature on the life trajectories of youth climate activists.

Keywords:

• youth
• climate change
• activism
• international
• internet research

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Roger Hart, David Chapin, Joseph Glick, Doug Fisher, and Lizzy Fraser for their thoughtfulness and persistence throughout the project. Thank you to my colleagues that patiently listen to my blabbering and somehow always respond with clear insight. Lastly, thank you to the generous youth climate activists that took the time to be interviewed and put up with my many emails.

Notes

1. In my literature search, I created a number of search combinations from various relevant terms, including youth, young, climate change, activist, activism, and advocate. I also considered the literature cited in the articles found from this search. Of course, given the limitations of the literature available to me, Buttigieg and Pace (2013) is not the only article reporting on the life trajectories of youth climate activists just because it is the only one I could find. But I do think it indicates the scarcity of research on the topic.

2. Additional countries could have been included, as some participants had lived in multiple countries and recalled experiences in those as significant. But for clarity, I include only the countries they identified as ’coming from’ for reporting on participants’ geographic information.

3. Pilot interviews included questions about social class and cultural group. But one of the interviewees said those were ‘stupid questions’ since his social class would be categorized differently depending on the context – upper-middle class in his neighborhood, lower-middle class in his country, and poor by international standards. I removed these questions from the interview protocol and allowed for the meaning of demographic variables to emerge from the participants’ stories.

4. For Bekele, age 28 from Ethiopia, and Olusegun, age 25 from Nigeria, I referred to the African Youth Charter (2006), ratified by both Ethiopia and Nigeria, which identifies the range for youth from 15 to 35. For Ohom, age 27 from Nepal, I referred to the Nepal National Youth Policy (2010), which identifies the ranges for youth from 16 to 40 years.

5. These were non-traditional field notes because data were collected at a computer through a digital space, which is not a traditional research field. But I consider these field notes because I made observations about the pacing and interaction of the interview and I reflected on my experiences at the computer in the digital space with the participants.

6. I recognize that I may be historicizing the lives of the participants by fixing them in this paper. But I hope they will continue to tell the memory of their lives, so my historical account should be considered as only one moment of their potentially generative and transformative memory. Future research may consider looking longitudinally at the changing meaning of memories for climate activists throughout their lives.

7. I also begin at these transformative moments because in the messiness of analysis identifying the theme of transformative moments for the participants was a transformative moment for me. Or as Cole and Knowles (2001) say, ‘Just as epiphanies shape the major decisions and meanings that individuals ascribe to a life, so too are they found in the process of inquiry’ (120).

8. In order to provide a better feel for readers of the data, I quote passages verbatim as they appeared in the instant messaging platform, including the original font and any minor spelling or grammatical errors.

9. Petra was interviewed using an Internet voice chat platform, so her quotations were transcribed and included as standard formatting.