Author: JustFutures

On June 30, Tânia R. Santos presented at the 2023 Preconference of the European Association of Social Psychology on the “Social Psychology of the Future: How can Social Psychology contribute to the development of a fairer and more sustainable world?” organized by Gavin B. Sullivan, Annayah M. B. Prosser, Lucia Bosone, and Marie Chevrier. The event took place at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland.

Tânia participated in this hybrid event with an in-person presentation titled: “Youth’s utopias and dystopias in warranting climate action.” In this co-authored presentation, together with other members of the JustFutures team, we explored the discursive uses of utopias and dystopias by young climate activists in constructing open and malleable futures within the spaces of climate activism. For this work, we analysed focus group discussions with young activists currently engaged in the climate movement.

On June 26, the JustFutures Team co-organized the Research and Debate Forum on Youth and Climate Change at the University of Minho, in collaboration with the EngageforSDG project. The event featured the participation of six research projects, which presented their main objectives, methodologies, and results. In the afternoon, spaces for debate were created, where interdisciplinary discussions took place, sharing cross-cutting aspects of the research conducted by the various projects.

The participating projects included JustFutures, EngageforSDG, ClimActic, Forest FM, and individual doctoral projects that aim to understand youth involvement in climate action. The debate also involved the participation of the audience both in person and remotely.

On June 22, Dora presented virtually at the Biennial Conference of the Society for Community Research and Action (SCRA) that was held in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

The presentation titled “Youth Voices from Portugal: Climate Justice Activism” was based on focus group discussion with youth in Portugal, focused on the way young people engage with climate justice, how they envision (more) just futures, as well their role in the process of building political transformations.

Ana Garcia and Dora Rebelo presented, respectively, in-person and virtually, at the Futures Conference 2023, which took place between June 14 and 16, 2023, in Turku, Finland.

Ana Garcia delivered her presentation “Crafting the future: Political imaginaries of Young Climate Activists in Portugal”, sharing the results from focused group discussions with young individuals and presenting preliminary findings from a multi-sited ethnographic study conducted with young activists. She explored questions such as “How do young climate activists in Portugal envision alternative futures in response to climate change?” and “What strategies do they employ to express their concerns and promote change?”

Dora Rebelo, based on a reflexive thematic analysis of 22 focus group discussions, presented virtually a communication titled “Political imaginaries and perspectives on climate futures: Young people building climate action,” focusing on how both activist and non-activist young individuals conceive political imaginaries and their role in shaping climate future(s).

O Outro Dia do ICS (June 7 2023) was an event organised by the Presidency of the Institute of Social Sciences at the University of Minho as a review of the initiatives carried out within the theme of the 46th anniversary celebrations of ICS, “Climate Change.” In addition to sharing research conducted at ICS, there was a display of educational activities and student work.

Anabela Carvalho gave a general presentation on JustFutures and highlighted some of the research already conducted. Daniela Ferreira da Silva presented the communication titled “Political Imaginaries of the Youth Climate Movement in Portugal,” which explored the imaginaries of four groups of young climate activists through the analysis of their texts.

On June 6th, researcher Tânia R. Santos participated virtually, with an oral presentation co-authored by Mehmet Ali Üzelgün and Anabela Carvalho, at the 17th Biennial Conference on Communication and the Environment in Harrisonburg, Virginia, USA.

The presentation titled “The multivoiced field of protest: creating and hindering political opportunities for young climate activists in the media” analyses the representation of young climate activists on Portuguese television. It examines the ways in which media presentation either opens up or closes off spaces for recognition of the demands made by young activists, particularly following the occupation of universities and schools in November 2022.

The presentation was part of the “Youth and Visuals” session, which explored the visual dimension in relation to young people in their representation, understanding of, and involvement with climate issues.

Ana Garcia and Daniela Ferreira da Silva attended the XII Portuguese Congress of Sociology, which took place from 4 to 6 April 2023 at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Coimbra. Both researchers of the project were included in Panel 7 of “Environment and Society” on “Environmental imaginaries, discourses and activism”. The speakers were grateful for audience input that fuelled the debate after their presentations.

Ana Garcia presented “Political agency and youth climate activism: perspectives and political imaginaries of young people on climate futures” showing preliminary results of task 4 of the project, particularly, on the analysis of focus groups with young climate activists in Lisbon, Porto and Braga and the how they understand their political agency.

Daniela Ferreira da Silva presented “What social transformations and visions for the future? Discourses and narratives of young climate activists in Portugal” on the analysis within the scope of task 2 of the project, analysing the online contents produced by various collectives of the youth climate movement in Portugal, in order to understand their prospects for the future and how to achieve them.

Dora Rebelo participated as an oral speaker at the 73^rd Political Studies Association Annual Conference on “Political Futures” that was held in the University of Liverpool from 3-5 April 2023. She presented during the panel “Environmental Activism in Britain and Beyond” that was chaired by Dr. Ozge Zihnioglu. Dora’s presentation entitled “Young people’s Political Imaginaries: Discussing Climate Futures and Just Transformations”, with the collaboration of the co-PI Maria Fernandes-Jesus, discussed preliminary analysis from task 4 of the project. This analysis explores political imaginaries as articulated by young people with different degrees of involvement with the climate movement during focus group discussions.