Blurring the ‘-ism’ in youth climate crisis activism: everyday agency and practices of marginalized youth in the Brazilian urban periphery

Abstract

This paper reflects upon the everyday agency of marginalized youth in the Brazilian urban periphery in responding to the climate crisis. In the context of the global covid-19 crisis, which has exacerbated patterns of social exclusion between urban centers and peripheries, we reflect on the extent to which current theorizations of youth activism are appropriate for understanding youth agency in the periphery of Sao Paulo. We seek to ‘blur the -ism’ in climate activism by introducing more multi-faceted understandings of agency based on young people’s everyday (inter-)actions with their environment as well as their contradicting emotions regarding their vulnerabilities and potential.