Format/Structure

We envision a double panel as a combination of paper presentations and an interactive workshop; we welcome contributions in both formats.

Long Abstract

Far-right authoritarianism is on the rise – and with it, a distinct form of relating to the climate crisis and environmental decline. Our planet is becoming hostile, not only due to the ecological crisis itself, but also because environmental policies are increasingly shaped by forces that undermine justice, conviviality, and democracy. These forces are often labelled ‘far-right’, ‘nationalist’, ‘authoritarian’, or ‘fascist’: they represent ideologies that combine nationalism, anti-immigration sentiment, racism, and authoritarian control with environmentalism as a tool for domination, exclusion, and the suppression of dissent (Allen et al., 2024; Gastivists Collective, 2024).

Yet resistance persists.

Grassroots movements, ‘green heroes’, scholars, activists, and practitioners are challenging these dynamics, defending alternative visions of food sovereignty, climate justice, and “green democracy” (Machin 2023; Gonda & Bori, 2023; Gonda 2025).

This panel takes resistance to far-right authoritarian environmentalism seriously: not as a reactive, and ineffective form of protest, but as a generative force shaping new visions of sustainability and democracy from below.

We envision the panel as a combination of paper presentations and an interactive workshop; we welcome contributions in both formats.

We invite contributions that explore resistance, struggles, and contestations – empirically, theoretically, or interactively on themes such as:

• Grassroots movements confronting co-optations of the green transition;

• Turning trauma into action: how experiences of loss can be turned into mobilisation against far-right authoritarianism,

• Indigenous, feminist and other alternative environmental struggles against far-right authoritarianism;

• Theoretical reflections on resistance as a generative, transformative force in far-right authoritarian contexts;

• Hope, affect, and the politics of silence in repressive contexts: where what remains unspoken or invisible may itself be a form of survival or latent resistance;

• etc.!

References:

Allen et al. (eds) (2024). https://library.oapen.org/viewer/web/viewer.html?file=/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/92100/9781526167804.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Gastivists Collective (2024). https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DoL1g4f7sQ5tAutMqagUb7qnQ7f-NIkR/view

Gonda (2025). https://doi.org/10.1177/27539687251342264

Gonda & Bori (2023). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2023.103766

Machin (2023). https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228620.013.859

This Panel has 4 pending paper proposals.
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