Abstract:
Based on his forthcoming book Post-Apocalyptic Environmentalism - The Green Movement in Times of Catastrophe, co-written with Carl Cassegård, Håkan's talk takes a historical and structural approach to the contemporary environmental movement. More specifically it focuses on the role of environmentalist meta-narratives and how they are anchored in different social contexts. Three such overarching narratives will be discussed: the narrative of green progress, the apocalyptic narrative and the postapocalyptic narrative. The historical approach involves tracing these narratives back to the different historical moments when they first emerged as established features of environmentalism; as well as discussing how they have been developed and transformed. The structural approach involves exemplifying how the narratives have been anchored in varying social conditions such as organizational context, class and socio-geography (e.g., Global North and Global South).
Håkan Thörn is a Full Professor in Sociology at the University of Gothenburg and has written extensively on social movements in general and the climate movement in particular. He is also coordinator for Forum for Research on Civil Society and Social Movements (CSM-RESIST) and has published several books, including Anti-Apartheid and the Emergence of a Global Civil Society (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006) and Climate Action in a Globalizing World (co-edited, Routledge, 2017). His latest outing, Post-Apocalyptic Environmentalism - The Green Movement in Times of Catastrophe, is co-written with Carl Cassegård and is out via Palgrave Macmillan later this year.