Learning through creative practices in the Anthropocene: young climate activists in urban spaces

Abstract

This paper explores the personal experiences of Sandra Kaire as a postdoctoral researcher who worked with Margaret Somerville in relation to methodological approaches. The ideas were initially developed in consultation when Sandra worked together with Margaret at Western Sydney University, Australia. The paper explores Sandra’s personal commitments and intimate engagement with young climate activists, and the development of visual, place-based and posthuman methodological approaches in relation to Sandra’s postdoctoral research with young climate activists in three European counties. It includes photographs of their activist environments, observations, and transcripts of in-depth interviews. The paper reveals the significance of climate activism experiences of young people to their educational concerns, and the relationships of the locations of their activism to experiences of becoming more than itself by adding new ways of thinking about human and more-than-human relation.