Culture and politics in overlapping frames for the future: Multi-dimensional activist organizing and communicating on climate change in Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract

Responding to climate change requires us to reimagine not only our future on a planet that is rapidly changing, but also how we organize to create political change. The climate movement and those involved in climate activism frame action on climate change in a diverse manner, articulating multiple possibilities for, and means to achieve, a different society. This article explores the ways in which activist groups in Aotearoa New Zealand work with cultural values and political imagination to organize themselves in framing the future to communicate and mobilize change. Our research identifies four key frames – rebel, reform, rebuild, and ruin – that shape the approaches taken by activists in order to resist the status quo and achieve radical change. We show how activists frame climate action and draw on culture to negotiate the political intersections of organizing for change, as well as how these frames overlap to create “in-between spaces.” Examining these in-between spaces reveals multiple and contextual visions of political change, emphasizing the importance of the cultural contexts of Aotearoa and the possibilities that arise from imagining different futures.