The People Gonna Rise With the Water: The People’s Climate March as a Public Sphere

• In Event: 463 - Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 05. Framing in Environmental Activism

Abstract

The People’s Climate March weekend, which occurred from Friday September 19th to Monday the 22nd, 2014 in New York City, was a pivotal moment in the movement towards climate justice. Never before had this movement seen hundreds of thousands of supporters gathered in one place for a weekend to exchange viewpoints and delve into this issue. Never again could it be said that no one cares about climate justice. As both academics and participants, we discuss the March weekend from the pre-march Climate Convergence and preparation to the People’s Climate March itself to post-march events including Flood Wall Street. This article utilizes theories of the "public sphere" to analyze the People’s Climate March and its surrounding events. The public sphere has been described as a space in which individuals can convene outside of the state, and democratically discuss and construct public opinion on political issues. We argue that, in deliberately working toward inclusivity and unbracketing inequalities and divisions normally present in the environmental movement, the People’s Climate March weekend embodied a public sphere and included recursive elements. Such a significant assemblage of people from all parts of the movement created the conditions necessary for the emergence of such a sphere and began a shift in the discourse on climate change.

Authors

• Danielle Falzon, Northeastern University

• Samuel Maron, Northeastern University

• Benjamin Levy, Northeastern University

• Alex Press, Northeastern University

• Robert Wengronowitz, Boston College

• Jeffrey Juris, Northeastern University