Mutual Aid and Climate Emergency: Can Mutual Aid Transform the Climate Justice Discourse in the Post- Covid World?

Keywords: Climate emergency, climate justice, care, mutual aid
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Sunday
Session Start / End Time: 2/27/2022 09:40 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/27/2022 11:00 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 73

Abstract

The covid-19 pandemic has brought into stark relief the centrality of care to human life and its undervaluation by society, a phenomenon that can be termed as a crisis of care. The surge of mutual aid and community care during the pandemic has illuminated the crisis of care and the power of mutual aid to confront the systemic injustices rooted in the crisis of care. There is a growing consensus on the potential of mutual aid in the struggle for climate justice in the post-Covid world, as the ongoing climate emergency also stems from the same systemic injustices and the crisis of care. This paper explores the potential of community care and mutual aid in confronting the climate emergency from a procedural justice stance. It includes a review of scholarly and grey literature in radical care, mutual aid in the pandemic, and climate justice and analyses how mutual aid can provide radical ways of thinking about climate justice. Climate action rooted in mutual aid can enhance the democratic nature of local place-based practices and build solidarities across geographic and species boundaries. Despite its democratic potentials, mutual aid risks being co-opted to supplement institutional neglect and create new forms of injustice. There is also the challenge of managing the people's personal care needs engaged in mutual aid. The synthesis of mutual aid, care, and climate justice discourse will provide insight into the procedural justice of embodied care work needed to live and transform the world in a time of climate emergency.