JPG1818H: The Geography and Planning of Climate Action and Activism

In the face of growing concerns around the climate crisis and its immediate and long-term impacts on our planet, organizations focused on activism and action have mushroomed locally and globally — from the very local scale to the international scale. The purpose of this course is to introduce students to range of tools critical to successful peaceful social mobilization (both within and outside of the state). The course draws on a range of scholarly literature on effective strategies of social mobilization — from geography, planning and cognate disciplines — as well as a range resources from social movement organizations. Though focused on questions of climate activism in the Canadian context we often incorporate lessons learned from other kinds of social movements in other locales. Students will be encouraged to focus on context dependent appraisal of the challenges and opportunities afforded by different approaches to mobilization around the climate crisis. While there is a long tradition of scholarly study on the relative efficacy of different approaches to social mobilization, to the best of my knowledge no such course in relation to climate activism exists at the University of Toronto, although there are several courses across the sciences, social sciences, and humanities that address the climate crisis.

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St. George