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Research article2022Peer reviewedOpen access

Emotional healing as part of environmental and climate justice processes: Frameworks and community-based experiences in times of environmental suffering

Gonzalez-Hidalgo, Marien; Del Bene, Daniela; Iniesta-Arandia, Irene; Pineiro, Concepcion

Abstract

This paper seeks to discuss the political role of healing practices in the context of climate and environmental justice struggles. We rely on literature and practices that have identified healing as a means for liberation from structural oppression and physical and symbolic violence, to humans, non-humans and nature - namely emotional political ecologies, transformative and healing justice and communitarian feminism. We also briefly discuss the experience of three collectives in Mexico, Colombia, and Spain who develop healing strategies as a way to emotionally support local communities exposed to territorial, environmental, and climate impacts and injustice. We argue that by further addressing the political dimensions of healing in environmental and climate justice, researchers, activists, and practitioners could expand the conceptualisation of (a) the spatial and temporal scales of climate justice by further engaging with the inter- and intra-generational emotional implications of environmental injustice, and (b) environmental and climate justice as a multidimensional and nonlinear collective emotional process.

Keywords

Healing; Climate justice; Environmental justice; Emotions; Political ecology

Published in

Political Geography
2022, Volume: 98, article number: 102721
Publisher: ELSEVIER SCI LTD

    Sustainable Development Goals

    Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
    Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels

    UKÄ Subject classification

    Social Sciences Interdisciplinary
    Political Science (excluding Public Administration Studies and Globalization Studies)

    Publication identifier

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2022.102721

    Permanent link to this page (URI)

    https://res.slu.se/id/publ/119301