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Paper short abstract

Drawing on insights from trans*-related experiences with change, this conceptual paper proposes alternative conceptualisations of being in environmental change. It creates narratives that go beyond overwhelm and eco-anxiety to instead centre joy, hope, and agency.

Paper long abstract

This conceptual paper brings together trans* studies and environmental humanities to examine narratives of change. Change, or rather the narratives through which we tell stories of change, can be overwhelming and connected to feelings of despair, powerlessness, and anxiety. When they relate to environmental change, these feelings are often called eco-anxiety.

Both gender-related and environment-related change not only concern something existential, they are also often constructed along binaries and in ways that create unique relationships to presents and futures. Based on these similarities, the paper sets out to examine insights from trans* experiences with change and their helpfulness in an environmental context. It identifies three main aspects of potential repositioning within moments of change that enable different dealing with the unpredictability, uncertainty, and uncontrollability of a world in critical environmental changes in ways that centre agency: (1) conceptualising moments of change as openings for imagination and creativity, (2) reorientation within the movement of change itself in a way that emphasises its directionality instead of destinations, and (3) actively building networks of care that encompass selves and worlds that feel bad, lost, or broken.

Through that, it proposes joyful and empowered narratives of change, and enables rethinking one’s own position amidst environmental crises. This repositioning can open helpful ways of dealing with overwhelming and eco-anxious feelings in the face of painful presents and uncertain futures. Since eco-anxiety emotionally collapses the global scope of environmental challenges into the individual, it is helpful to develop strategies of approaching change on this level.