Youth Environmental Stewardship and Activism for the Environmental Commons

• In Event: 52.035 - Contemporary Youth Activism: Advancing Social Justice in the United States

Abstract

Environmental degradation affects how people live their lives and forces us to face questions of social justice due to the unequal burden that different groups of people bear from the lasting effects of this degradation. As younger generations are the ones most affected by the current environmental crises and their long-term effects, youth activism on environmental issues is increasingly significant. In facing these challenges, youth will have to be skilled at problem solving that recognizes the interrelationship between environmental and social justice and involved in the decision-making process on matters that affect their communities.

In this paper, we have approached the subject of youth environmental stewardship and activism from an environmental commons perspective, by which we mean the natural areas and systems on which life depends and the cultural and societal assets and resources, such as arts, information, traditions, and public spaces and institutions where people gather and engage in civic affairs. We refer to these resources, assets, and spaces as a commons because they are shared and can be utilized by all. Our particular focus is on the intersection of social and environmental justice action that links human interdependence with other living things. We argue that this is a space ripe for youth civic engagement and we emphasize that an intersectional analysis that links environmental with race and social class issues has the potential to bring a social justice approach to youth-led environmental organizing and action. Examples that highlight these intersectional perspectives will be addressed, emphasizing how young activists recognize the intersectional ways they are affected by enclosing the commons, transform public discourse to retain access to public space, mobilize communities through culturally relevant forms, and lay claim to the commons with cross-generational work.

Youth activism and engagement in stewardship of the commons focuses on the potential of young people to take collective action on an issue of public consequence in their local community. We contend that youth environmental commons activism addresses the interconnections between issues of justice and the systems of oppression that create them, emphasizing that solutions to one issue are inextricably linked to the other issues and their solutions. It focuses questions in terms of everyday life and asks that we look at the places where the environment and access to opportunity intersect, recognizing the intersectional impacts and causes of destructive environmental practices as interrelated with other social justice issues.

Specific examples of youth activism illustrate how young people are organizing around integrated concerns about their communities and environment. They are creating meaningful change in their communities, altering power relations, raising consciousness, and helping their communities become politically empowered. The intersectional analysis motivating and informing the young people’s action is a political education for the youth involved both in terms of power dynamics and their capacities to be experts leading their communities. The cases demonstrate how environmental commons organizing helps young people to see the intersection of social justice and environmental issues, honors their cultural claims and voices, and nurtures their expertise and leadership.

Authors

• Erin Gallay, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• John Joseph Lupinacci, Washington State University - Pullman

• Carolina Sarmiento, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Constance A. Flanagan, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Ethan A. Lowenstein, Eastern Michigan University