Taking Political Time: Thinking Past the Emergency Timescapes of the New Climate Movements

Abstract

This article discusses the contrasting “temporal regimes” of Extinction Rebellion and the concept of a feminist green new deal. The authors discuss the former’s emphasis on emergency to stimulate disobedient action, particularly out of concern for one’s future children and grandchildren. They argue that, while this emphasis has successfully catalyzed public agency, this agency remains socially narrow, as emergency thinking subordinates the political time central to inclusive movement building, while the personalization of intergenerational concern risks reproducing privilege and asset protection. As a result, actually existing material and symbolic inequalities are characteristically decentered. The authors contrast this with the times-capes of calls for a feminist green new deal, which eschew both crisis narratives and reprocentric futurism. In troubled times, they conclude, it is more productive to reconsider not just when but how to address the demands of climate breakdown.