The climate crisis is scary; it threatens our livelihoods, and these effects will worsen into our futures. Responses by institutions have failed to be transformational; it is understandable, indeed appropriate, that people are concerned. “Eco-anxiety” is a term used to refer to a wide range of psychological responses to the climate crisis. Uncritical acceptance of eco-anxiety as a psychological phenomenon risks over-focussing on individual shortfalls. Ethical responses to eco-anxiety must understand the problem as simultaneously personal and systemic in order to achieve justice for communities. Such a task requires critical perspectives that cope with this complexity. In this chapter, Queer Theory is used as a lens that is critical of systems but knowing of lived experience. The author’s personal experience of eco-anxiety is reinterpreted through this lens, using autoethnography. The blending of Queer Theory with autoethnography generates tentative ideas, “read-up” from personal experience, about coping in eco-anxious times. This extends into a consideration of how psychologists may ethically respond to this simultaneously personal and political problem and be part of a broader pursuit of climate justice.

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Queering Eco-Anxiety: An Autoethnographic and Intimate Exploration of Moving from Distress to Possibility Amidst the Climate Crisis

  • Lucy McLean

摘要

The climate crisis is scary; it threatens our livelihoods, and these effects will worsen into our futures. Responses by institutions have failed to be transformational; it is understandable, indeed appropriate, that people are concerned. “Eco-anxiety” is a term used to refer to a wide range of psychological responses to the climate crisis. Uncritical acceptance of eco-anxiety as a psychological phenomenon risks over-focussing on individual shortfalls. Ethical responses to eco-anxiety must understand the problem as simultaneously personal and systemic in order to achieve justice for communities. Such a task requires critical perspectives that cope with this complexity. In this chapter, Queer Theory is used as a lens that is critical of systems but knowing of lived experience. The author’s personal experience of eco-anxiety is reinterpreted through this lens, using autoethnography. The blending of Queer Theory with autoethnography generates tentative ideas, “read-up” from personal experience, about coping in eco-anxious times. This extends into a consideration of how psychologists may ethically respond to this simultaneously personal and political problem and be part of a broader pursuit of climate justice.