Activating Ecocentrism: How Young Women Environmental Activists Produce Identity on Instagram

Abstract

ABSTRACT The fresh face of much of today’s environmental activism is young and female, particularly visible through movements such as School Strike for Climate (SS4C). Given the pressing need for embracing and broadcasting ecocentric ways of communicating, identifying, and behaving in these times – when impacts of anthropogenic climate and environmental crises are increasingly apparent – the ecocultural discourses such activists produce for public audiences are of utmost importance. The present study illuminates ways leading young women activists produce ecocentric identities within their principal online channel of public communication, the social media platform Instagram. We identify six predominant values central to these activists’ ecocentric identities: collective over individual action, intersectionality, climate optimism, corporate and political responsibility, ethics of care, and more-than-human connection. We also illustrate ways activists operationalize these values via three main material-symbolic identity activations: holding governments and industries accountable and responsible for their role in the climate crisis; creating inclusive, diverse communities; and fostering emotional responses to the more-than-human world. While activists under study also produce their ecocentric identities in the physical world – for instance, through on-the-ground protest leadership – their online identity production communicates shared values and actions in intimate, powerful, and potentially transformative ways to mass global audiences.