Paper short abstract:

This presentation will consider some of the evolving affects and socialities arising around climate emergency in the context of affluent regions still relatively untouched by actual changes, based on fieldwork within the XR movement across Europe and amongst the climate-distressed.

Paper long abstract:

New mass movements concentrating on climate emergency have quickly galvanised people across the world. Focussing on countries where its message of urgency cannot refer to already emerging climatic changes, I will explore the juxtapositions of complacency, mobilisation and distress, and the role of privilege in the evolving affects and socialities. I will consider comparatively what evolves in the place of privileged unknowingness when the reality that some can still afford to unsee becomes increasingly visible, and how this happens. Based on the ongoing fieldwork amongst the members of the Extinction Rebellion movement in the UK and in Estonia, I will consider where privilege might reside in such circumstances and what forms of social relations might it trigger. As this research is only just starting, the final version of this presentation might be taking a rather different direction. For now, I am intrigued by both the impact of global privilege on such movements, as well as the way privilege shapes climate protest movements locally.