Climate Insurgency between Academia and Activism

Abstract

This interview focuses on a spectrum of urgent challenges facing marginalized human and other-than-human communities, including the intersecting crises of global anthropogenic climate disruption and state and institutional racist violence. We discuss and consider the opportunities, limits, and contradictions of pursuing transformative, intersectional political change and scholarship through efforts to bridge community activism and academic labor. We also critically engage questions concerning the role of the state in the context of racial capitalism and the production of environmental and climate injustice, and how grassroots movements have responded to these concerns. Specific movement formations included in this discussion include the Central Coast Climate Justice Network of California, the Movement for Black Lives/Black Lives Matter, Extinction Rebellion, and multispecies abolition democracy. The importance of radical, multi-issue politics and cross-movement solidarities is also given serious attention.