Publications

African traditional protest repertoires of contention are often effective in facilitating mass mobilization due to their symbolic resonance. The use of these indigenous repertoires in Africa has promoted their continued inclusion and use in contemporary protests across the continent. Despite their significant role in shaping the trajectories of mobilization in Africa, these repertoires have been understudied in the social movement literature. Their symbolic appeal and facilitation of mobilization against repressive regimes have also allowed for their deployment in similar ways across varying historical and political contexts. By employing a parallel case studies design using the Nigerian EndSARS movement and the Cameroon Anglophone movement, this study illustrates similar patterns in the effectiveness of African traditional repertoires in constraining the actions of repressive forces, allowing for the growth of popular contention. Hence, local repertoires support the expansion phase of social movements in repressive environments. Social movement studies may be advanced by incorporating cases beyond the global North model, with specific attention to the accelerator function of African repertoires. 

The most recent scientific reporting suggests that the outlook for continued global warming is dire. Collective action and civic engagement by ordinary people around the world will prove decisive in slowing down global warming and supporting planetary survival. Climate Change and Civic Engagement demonstrates the origins, gains, and future trajectory of the climate movement. In analyzing collective action events around the world and exploring how the movement navigates the competing paradigms of climate denialism, decarbonization, and just transitions, this book includes:

• Data collected from thousands of climate engagements and events.
• The most recent tools from social movement scholarship, such as GIS mapping, representative surveys from frontline communities, and theories of expanding climate civic engagement along just transition pathways.
• An exploration of the links between climate justice and environmental justice.
• Creative tactics for sustaining collective climate action in the face of climate denialism and technocratic solutions.
   

This book shows readers the indispensability of social movement knowledge in forging effective climate justice movements.

Climate action encompasses all kinds of efforts to mitigate climate change. The Oxford Handbook of Climate Action examines diverse efforts globally, with chapters discussing activism or policy on every continent. The volume presents major theoretical perspectives and concrete strategies for addressing climate change in the twenty-first century. The Handbook considers both noninstitutional and institutional forms of climate action. Contributors discuss the origins of climate activism as well as important achievements in raising public awareness, increasing participation, incorporating environmental justice, and implementing climate-friendly policies. They also demonstrate why nonconventional forms of collective action are necessary and effective when existing institutions fail to address planetary warming at an appropriate pace and level of urgency. Authors cover climate action planning, renewable energy systems, reforestation, carbon capture and storage technologies, nature-based climate solutions, and just economic transitions. The scholars also identify climate action within broader systems of race, class, gender, and colonialism. Drawing from environmental science, sociology, political science, and anthropology, the Handbook gathers analyses and recommendations from an interdisciplinary field of specialists. The volume is thereby both comprehensive and accessible to students and scholars from various disciplines, making it a vital resource for anyone interested in the study of climate issues.

Public universities surrounded by frontline communities create the potential to serve as focal points for just transition strategies to address the climate crisis. University students from environmental justice communities can serve as just transition ambassadors as trusted messengers to facilitate equitable climate solutions and green workforce development. In the context of finite financial resources, state agenices and philanthropic foundations should consider prioritizing investing in units within universities working with disinvested and low-income populations.  More specifically, investing in university labor centers offers the greatest likelihood of obtaining desired outcomes. A case study of the University of California, Merced  is presented as a model for designating public universities in regions with high densities of climate vulnerable groups as hubs for implementing just transition practices.

Organizational and civic organizing resources provide critical inputs to communities in need. The skills and know-how of climate action tend to be concentrated with scientific experts and in research institutions. In order to reach broader segments of the population in terms of access and participation in climate action, expertise needs to be shared beyond academic and specialized organizational settings.  This study examines the correlates of organizational resource sharing via the participation in climate action planning by members of a research university located in a disinvested region – the San Joaquin Valley of California. We consider the organizational, civic engagement, and ideational elements of individual participation in climate action in environmental justice communities with a large-scale census survey. Organizational members with civic capacity experience, environmental identities, and shared lived experience were found to be the most willing to participate in public meetings to address climate change and equity in frontline communities.

Involving residents in meaningful participation in heavily polluted regions faces many obstacles. This study focuses on the conditions that enhance individual involvement in civic initiatives against environmental hazards in one of the largest cities in the United States facing chronic and heightened air pollution exposure. The work is based on a large-scale representative survey of 1,950 residents in Fresno, California. The survey was carried out by a multiracial coalition of community-based organizations. The findings suggest that those individuals with ties to capacity-building organizations and with civic engagement experience were the most willing to attend local meetings about air pollution. In addition, days with higher levels of air pollution also acted as an environmental threat, motivating civic action. The study suggests that increasing public participation in pollution mitigation begins with investing in the types of civic organizations that specialize in capacity building for public engagement in order to advance the environmental justice principles of procedural justice.