Doomsday environmentalism: socio-environmental justice beyond hope in Gaelic Scotland

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

ABSTRACT Contemporary environmentalism and environmental thought have a tendency to emphasise hope over despair: despair, the argument goes, leads to inaction while hope inspires agency in the face of environmental challenges. This article draws on ethnographic evidence from Gaelic Scotland to suggest a reappraisal of the generative power of doom in addressing socio-environmental problems. It traces the history of doomsday prophecies as a political force in Gaelic Scotland and draws parallels between these prophecies and contemporary predictive forms that foretell the loss of Gaelic and of nature. It argues that while nature conservation and Gaelic revitalisation have struggled to find common discursive ground, predictions of catastrophic loss have proven fertile for intersectional discussions of linguistic and environmental justice. Ironically, then, doom-laden discourses provide a glimmer of hope for a more inclusive environmentalism in Scotland, and despair proves a potent resource in marginalised spaces where continual state neglect leaves hope in short supply.