Everyday citizen or eco-activist? Youth agency in imagining sustainable futures in coastal Ecuador

• In Event: Coastal communities in Latin America: Honoring children’s everyday sensemaking of changing lands and waters

Proposal

The lives of young people today will be profoundly shaped by the climate crisis. Decisions around climate mitigation strategy and systems adaptation will soon be the responsibility of today’s young people, and yet most have had few avenues to “cultivate, voice, and express their understandings, concerns, and imaginings about climate change” (Rousell & Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles, 2020, p. 192). With some exceptions (Hubbard & Williams, 2021), insufficient attention has been paid to the lack of opportunity for youth engagement in climate action in the Global South. This paper explores the role of youth agency in the construction of environmental knowledge and perceptions of climate-related risk among secondary school students in coastal Ecuador. Using an interdisciplinary framework grounded in the capability approach (Robeyns, 2017; Sen, 2003) and critical science agency concepts (Schenkel & Calabrese Barton, 2020; Ballard et al., 2017), this paper seeks to answer the following questions: How is youth climate agency realized in coastal Ecuador? What practices and experiences support the development of youth climate agency? And finally, how do individual agency and aspirations shape youth perceptions of environmental risk? Data analysis from surveys with 193 students in two different secondary schools in coastal Ecuador, as well as interviews with 17 of these students show that youth climate agency hinged on local environmental conditions, intergenerational knowledge of place, and everyday household practices. Additionally, short-term, contingent events -- specifically, the El Niño phenomenon -- shaped youth visions of future climate risks and adaptation, as well as personal aspirations. This presentation of ongoing dissertation research will offer insights into the ways that concepts from capability approach and critical science agency may be used to understand and support the development of youth climate agency, and more broadly contribute to scholarship on climate change education in the Global South.

Author

• Neela Nandyal, St. Catherine University