ECO-Young: Ecologies Of Learning For Climate Transformations In The Lives Of Brazilian And Senegalese Young People

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 1:45 pm - Gold 4
  In Roundtable Session: Navigating Borders: Learning, Equity, and Youth Agency in Transnational Contexts

Abstract

Young people have emerged as key actors in raising awareness and mobilizing action around the climate crisis. However, global responses often overlook their diverse ways of learning about and responding to climate transformations, especially outside formal education. This paper explores young people’s learning ecologies around the climate crisis in Ceará (Brazil) and Dakar (Senegal). The study expands the conceptual frame of learning ecologies with decolonial ideas of epistemic pluriversality. Our research is based on multimodal collaborative ethnographic fieldwork, including participant observation, interviews, audiovisual documentation, and co-research with young people aged 15–24. Across both sites, young people are not passive victims of climate impacts, but active knowledge producers who engage with their environments in ways that challenge dominant narratives.

Authors

• Monica Lemos, Colégio Rio Branco

• Antti J. Rajala, University of Eastern Finland

• Eleonora Lundell, University of Neuchatel