The Creation of Youth Climate Justice Cultures in Santa Barbara, California

• In Event: 261 - Section on Political Sociology Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 10. Recruitment and Mobilization

Abstract

Since the early 2000s, the climate justice movement has been gaining momentum. Now, politicized young adults who have grown up in a changing climate are joining in and organizing their colleges and communities. Using data from in-depth interviews with 29 youth activists in Santa Barbara County, California, the birthplace of both the environmental movement and offshore oil drilling, this chapter analyzes the cultures of organizing that young people develop to resist extreme energy extraction and create climate justice. They practice and theorize horizontal, inclusive, and relationship-based organizing to work for change. These qualities are built on youth activists’ dedication to “meeting people where they’re at” in terms of awareness and knowledge of climate change, recognizing their own privilege as current college students and recent alumni informed about global crises and intersectionality, and acting to change organizing and political cultures and structures. By “calling each other in” to conversations and relationships across difference, they develop the skills necessary to emerge as climate justice leaders, plant the seeds for a broad-based social movement, and build resilient social relationships for living in, and potentially emerging from, climate crisis.

Author

• Corrie Ellis Grosse, University of California Santa Barbara