Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

Spanish

French

This article proposes that children constitute a new climate precariat. This conceptualization contributes to a more comprehensive theoretical understanding of the vulnerability of children in relation to the climate crisis. Previous literature tends to treat climate change in an abstract fashion that renders today’s children invisible. Climate precarity consists of three main elements of vulnerability: temporality problems, insecurity and an identity vacuum. In relation to temporality and security, children are suffering from the potential loss of a sustainable future, which spurs the need for urgent action and constant consciousness – in the present. World leaders’ inaction creates an uncertainty regarding whom should be held responsible for taking action in guaranteeing children the future which climate change is at risk of depriving them. The concept of climate precarity could be used to explain children’s collective action in relation to the climate crisis. Children’s concerns in relation to the climate crisis suggest that agency and empowerment are spurred through their resistance towards these vulnerabilities.

Keywords

Agency children climate crisis climate precariat security vulnerability

Introduction

As sustainability and environmental issues have climbed the global, regional, national and local agendas, social vulnerability has many times been a subject of debate (Hagedorn et al., 2019). Still, social science – and sociology – has been criticized for not engaging enough in research on the social consequences of climate change (Koehrsen et al., 2020; Yearley, 2009). The scientific debate has recognized differences in climate change vulnerability related to ‘race, class, ethnicity and gender’ (Thomas et al., 2019), and the importance of access to resources, governance, culture and knowledge (Thomas et al., 2019). However, there is a need for further research, and we claim that one central aspect has been overlooked in this conversation: the precarity of children (cf. Bühler-Niederberger, 2010).

This article develops a theoretical conceptualization of children’s vulnerability in the context of the global climate crisis. Previous literature tends to treat climate change in an abstract fashion that renders today’s children largely invisible. Through a conceptualization which recognizes the vulnerability of today’s children we may better understand their agency – which was demonstrated in the 2019 worldwide protest by children and youth. There are reasons to emphasize the rights and the need for empowerment of children and youth in relation to sustainability. Previous sociological studies on youth tend to problematize their ability as a group to influence their own lives, the environment that they are living in, as well as the society as a whole (White et al., 2017). By directing attention towards children’s vulnerability in relation to the climate crisis, their concerns and case for empowerment in this crucial area are strengthened. Children and youth, as a group, develop in the same way as adults as a result of societal changes, mobile technologies and globalization (Oswell, 2013).

As environmental degradation and the awareness of a climate crisis have unfolded on a global scale, since the 1970s, it has become clear that children and young people are particularly vulnerable (McGillivray, 2017; United Nations, 2015). The young generation exhorts that immediate action needs to be taken by world leaders, making climate-damaging behaviour unattractive and expensive (Holmberg and Alvinius, 2020). In this endeavour, children are siding with scientists. Across different research disciplines, scientists are justifying the concerns of the younger generations and thereby encourage the activism of children (Editorial, 2019; Hagedorn et al., 2019).

Our purpose with this article is to make a conceptual proposition: that children constitute a new climate precariat. Why employ the concept of precariat? Precarity is traditionally understood as a state of insecure employment or income, lacking in predictability, resources or psychological welfare (Butler, 2006; Standing, 2016). Nevertheless, the term is used to conceptualize shared vulnerabilities among (possibly diverse) groups also in contexts other than work. In this endeavour, we draw on Guy Standing’s (2011, 2014, 2016) conceptualization of the precariat – set in a context related to work, social security and identity in the globalized world. Key to his conceptualization are elements of temporality aspects, various forms of social insecurity and the presence of an identity vacuum.

To talk about children as a group can be controversial. However, a joint WHO/UNICEF/Lancet report stated in February 2020 that children across the world, not only those in the developing world, suffer from an uncertain future:

Despite dramatic improvements in survival, nutrition, and education over recent decades, today’s children face an uncertain future. Climate change, ecological degradation, migrating populations, conflict, pervasive inequalities, and predatory commercial practices threaten the health and future of children in every country. (Clark et al., 2020: 605)

Climate precarity defines features of children’s contemporary and future social life. Using Judith Butler’s words, precarity is a destruction of life conditions in a society in which certain groups (such as children) are exposed to insecurity, instability, violence or death (Butler, 2006). We argue that children as a group can be conceptualized as a climate precariat – because the vulnerabilities, problems and the effects of the climate crisis are a shared condition of their social life (cf. Elliott, 2018). However, we acknowledge that children’s vulnerabilities are diverse and linked to (lack of) power and pre-existing structural inequalities (Hammami, 2016; Natarajan et al., 2019).

In addition to the caveats above, we recognize that the conceptualization of a child is different in various cultural contexts across the world. Empirically, the social, economic and political responsibilities and rights of individuals below 18 years of age differ greatly. In addition, not all children have the same social, economic or political abilities – agency – to act in response to the climate crisis. However, the protest movement led by Greta Thunberg and other young female activists from different continents, such as Nakabuye Hilda F., Ridhima Pandey, Isra Hirsi or Marinel Ubaldo, speaks for the entirety of the group and represents children’s symbolic power (Global Citizen, 2019).

Bourdieu (1986, 1991) offers suitable conceptual tools (symbolic power, habitus and field) for theorizing climate precarity among children as a group in the context of the climate crisis. Similar analytical conceptualizations of shared social conditions of youth with vastly different geographical origins have been made by Schilling et al. (2019), also employing Bourdieu. The climate precariat can be understood as a social field, a space where children as a group find themselves. This social field is shared among children, irrespective of the climate crisis having diverse consequences at different points in time or in various parts of the world. Children share vulnerabilities that affect the conditions of their social life, their habitus. The vulnerability of the climate precariat threatens their individual and collective habits. It could be argued that adults’ historical choices and practices (climate change denial) limit children’s future lives in this social field (cf. Bourdieu, 1986). To view the climate precariat as a social field implies that children as a group are sharing the consequences of the climate crisis, even if the indications of the crisis differ depending on geography and social status. We acknowledge that through this theoretical exercise, we are moving in the direction of constructing another Anthropocene ‘we’ (Hamilton, 2019) that may create new conflictual lines. However, this may be necessary if children’s vulnerabilities are to be illuminated and their concerns recognized.

In the following, we first reiterate the original uses and applications of the concept of precarity – in order to trace the essential elements of the concept. We then move on to the conceptual proposition, which is divided into three parts: temporality, security and the identity element. The article finishes with conclusions and a discussion that address how children’s climate precarity can enhance the analysis of their agency. We also offer suggestions for further research.

Literature review: Precarity in previous research

Precarity in the context of work

Bourdieu introduced the concept of precarity (précarité) in 1963 in his research describing the experiences of temporary and insecure working conditions (Natarajan et al., 2019). The term was later resurrected by social scientists (Butler, 2006; Standing, 2016). The social class defined as precarious suffer from long-time flexible and intermittent work in post-industrial societies, including low pay. The condition particularly affects women, immigrants, refugees and youth, who experience continuous fear arising from the loss of stability, security and predictability in everyday life (Butler, 2015; Lorey, 2015; Standing, 2016).

The term precariat has acquired many usages (Alberti et al., 2018; Campbell and Price, 2016; Jørgensen, 2016), in the field of labour, work organization (Gorz, 1982), and in studies of global poverty from a historical perspective (Kerbo, 1996). It is also used in studies concerning social, economic or health inequality and stratification (Goldthorpe, 2009). One of the more prominent applications of the concept has been pursued by Standing (2010, 2016). His use of the concept relates to the changing structures of work (life) and society which have followed the traces of globalization, affecting people of different backgrounds all over the planet by moving the risks associated with work to individuals (see also Hewison and Kalleberg, 2013). Previous research (Smith, 2011) has identified not only well-known forces such as demographics (birth rates, ageing, causes of death), but globalization and technology as sources of precarity. Other changes such as the growing demand for natural resources and the climate crisis create communities of suffering that share experiences of precariousness (Harvey, 2016).

Standing’s conceptualization of the precariat as a global phenomenon has been criticized because social conditions are incomparable and divisions across the globe are too overwhelming to speak of a single precariat. However, researchers are trying to grasp experiences of precarity that are shared across the globe, for instance the experiences of urban youth in relation to work (Schilling et al., 2019). Key traits of the growing precariat as envisaged by Standing include the lack of social security and an identity connected to work. Youth are particularly affected, as their expectations of welfare are not likely to be fulfilled – those that are young in the beginning of the 21st century can expect to have a ‘negative’ development compared to previous generations. This creates generational tensions (Standing, 2016) – although it should be noted that the young generation does not necessarily have the same values and aspirations as the older generation (Inglehart, 2008). The precariat is also characterized by an important temporal element: it is forced to live ‘in the present’, not being able to focus on the future (Standing, 2016). Social protection such as insurance, pension or paid holidays is not extended to the precariat, as the social system is built upon secure employment conditions. Planning for the future is therefore not possible (Standing, 2016).

The term precarity has also been criticized on the grounds that it indicates a lack of agency within the social class concerned. However, different forms of resistance enacted by precarious workers show that agencies are present (Paret, 2016; Paret and Gleeson, 2016). Other critics argue that precarity is not only a question of the characteristics of a group. More attention should be focused on what precarity does, in the processes of the neoliberal economy that affect people socially and politically and in the processes of environmental degradation and climate crisis (Jørgensen, 2016; Tyler, 2015). We recognize that there may be problems associated with identifying different groups of people as precarious. However, a focus upon the presence and effects of precarity fulfils a function as it allows for and potentially motivates collective action in response to inequalities. As noted by Schilling et al.: ‘A global sociology of precarity may analyse practices evolving in unstable living conditions while acknowledging that these result not only from post-Fordist deinstitutionalization of wage labour’ (Schilling et al., 2019: 1337).

Jørgensen (2016) has argued for an increased focus on the effects and consequences of precarization as part of a social system, while others offer a deeper critique that questions the concept’s connection to economy, and seeks wider understandings of precarity (Neilson and Rossiter, 2008). Our conceptualization could be understood as such an undertaking. Work is not central in our usage of the term, or in the context of the climate crisis – at least not yet. However, the central elements of the concept – temporality, security and identity – are very useful for illustrating the vulnerability of children. Although the climate crisis is in many ways fundamentally different from the structures of work and employment, it does contain elements of structure with implications that affect individuals in ways similar to the neoliberal economic system. Standing (2016) talks of a changing atmosphere in society, where the representatives of the precariat are beginning to turn feelings of shame and self-guilt into resistance and power (cf. Butler et al., 2016 on vulnerability and resistance). Standing argues that the precariat needs collective agency and voice (2016), and that ecological destruction is one aspect that will increasingly concern it.

Precarity and the climate crisis

Researchers before us have applied the concept of precarity in contexts besides work. For instance, vulnerability in relation to catastrophes caused by nature has been termed ecological precariat, characterized by a discourse of environmental suffering that bears traces of ‘distrust, uncertainty and confusion’ (Harvey, 2016: 871). In addition, Natarajan et al. (2019) discuss climate adaptation through the lens of the climate precarity of Cambodian farmers. They conclude that climate change exacerbates precarity.

Critics are beginning to challenge how social science has dealt with climate change. Instead of being treated as a problem to be dealt with, maintaining a division between the social and the natural, Bulkeley (2019) argues that it needs to be understood as something that constitutes socio-spatial relations. The sociological implications of the climate crisis are many. Examples include the climate crisis’s implications for precarity (Harvey, 2016), apocalyptic narratives related to the climate crisis (Fagan, 2017a), how climate change affects conceptualizations of justice (Skillington, 2015), consequences for questions of political and social responsibility (O’Mahony, 2015) and redirections of state attention because of the Anthropocene (Luisetti, 2019). Elliott (2018) has shown that climate change can be approached as a sociology of loss, involving aspects related to material, politics, knowledge and practices. These forms of loss all represent areas of social change, spurred in different ways by how climate change is conceived of.

Intergenerational justice and fairness have been discussed in relation to law, ethics and responsibilities towards future generations, in relation to climate change (Jerneck et al., 2011; White, 2017). In this context, McGillivray (2017) has made a strong case for the rights of the child to a secure climate – including today’s children. However, we argue that by using the abstract concept of future generations, most of this debate has de-humanized and partly distanced itself from today’s children as subjects in relation to the climate crisis. Even in the cases where today’s youth are addressed, scholars find that climate justice/resistance movements have problems in achieving an inclusive environment (Thomas Black et al., 2016) – although there are examples of successful involvement of marginalized youth in certain climate change adaptation efforts (MacDonald et al., 2015). Ignoring today’s children in discussions of intergenerational justice is problematic. Children have, in the western world, been deprived of their rights as subjects, and their inability for agency has been assumed (Garlen, 2019). This invisibility has been conceptualized as a form of precarity (Switzer et al., 2016). At the same time, children are burdened with the responsibility for turning unsustainability to sustainability and to abolish their precarity in the global discourse on climate change. The UN resolution ‘Transforming our world: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’ points at children and coming generations, handing them responsibility for sustainable action at the same time as they – in other parts of the document – are pictured as vulnerable and victims (United Nations, 2015: 11–12). In this context, children become (future) agents whose (future) actions allow today’s political leaders to avoid taking action and responsibility for the climate crisis.

Children as a new climate precariat: A conceptual proposition

The climate precariat can be conceptualized theoretically as consisting of three elements: the temporal element, the security element and the identity element. In the following, these are theorized in connection to children, vulnerability and the climate crisis. We recognize that the elements are closely connected, and dynamically linked to each other. However, for the sake of the theoretical argument they are kept distinct.

The temporal element of the climate precariat

Temporality is a concept that traditionally refers to a linear progression from the past, to the present and towards the future. Temporality is studied from different perspectives, for instance as human perception (Utz, 2011), as governmental and organizing principles in organizations and societies (Lorey, 2015), as the socio-temporal organization of a social entity and as a bio-temporal order (such as ageing or a pregnancy) in human life (Krekula, 2019; Krekula and Johansson, 2017). Sewell talks about temporality as taking the form of trends, events and routines (Sewell, 1996, 2005, 2008). In international studies, critical perspectives have been applied to time and temporality – highlighting the importance of time for political visions and the politics of delimiting events (Hom, 2018; Lundborg, 2012).

White problematizes how a discourse on generations appears in an inter-temporal chain that structures the problem of climate change as something that is not situated in the present (White, 2017). Similarly, Skrimshire and Fagan discuss the application of ethics in relation to the long timeframes set out in modern, secular temporality often characterized by apocalyptic narratives (Fagan, 2017a; Skrimshire, 2019). The argument put forward here is more problem-oriented, and can be seen as a follow-up on the points made by White and Fagan – as we try to show how awareness of the negative consequences of pushing the problem of the climate crisis forward can be conceptualized as affecting children already today. This way, the representation of the subject of the climate crisis becomes relational and an awareness of a link between the individual and the collective can contest broader structures that detach the climate crisis from the present.

Temporality is linked to precarization. Butler (2015) argues that precarization means a general experience of living with an unpredictable future. A consequence of this is that precarization affects everybody at some point and becomes a particular form of exploitation that characterizes contemporary society (Krekula, 2019). We argue that the children of today are already vulnerable because of the climate crisis. The consequence of temporality linked to the ‘original’ precariat chains its members to the present. Due to uncertain working conditions and lack of social security, the precariat has trouble planning for the future (Standing, 2016). The climate precariat suffer from another consequence of temporality. Children are forced to think about their future and evaluate their actions in the present time in terms of their future implications in a way that seems unprecedented. In a way, the present is stolen from the climate precariat – children cannot allow themselves to live in the present and carelessly consume or act without repercussion. The temporality of the present–future is reversed for the climate precariat as compared to the ‘original’ precariat. In the case of the climate precariat, the temporality of the present and the future is interwoven, which means that it cannot be captured by a linear conceptualization of time as trends. Crises are usually understood as linear events (cf. Sewell, 2008). As noted by White (2017) and Fagan (2017a), the implications of the climate crisis in the present have therefore often been overlooked. However, one exception is McGillivray (2017), who notes that climate change could cause pretraumatic stress disorder.

A challenge for the climate precariat is to convince the adult population (especially white middle-class men with power) of the urgency of action in the present (Hultman and Pulé, 2019). A key message in Greta Thunberg’s speeches is that climate change has to be dealt with now – speedily in the present – and not in a distant future.

Some people say I should study and become a climate scientist so I can ‘solve the climate crisis’. . . . But the climate crisis has already been solved. We already have all the facts and solutions. All we have to do is to wake up and change. And why I should have been studying for the future, that soon will be no more, when no one is doing anything to save that future. And what is the point of learning facts within the school system when the most important facts given by the finest science of that same school system clearly mean nothing to our politicians and our society? (Thunberg, 2019: 10)

Drawing on Lundborg (2012), we argue that Thunberg’s intervention illustrates a challenge to the politics of the climate crisis as an event represented by the global discourse on climate change. While the temporality of the ‘original’ precariat has individual implications, the temporality of the climate precariat has collective dimensions. The modern way of life has to change everywhere, as argued by Thunberg.

The security element of the climate precariat

In recent decades, security threats have been broadened and increasingly framed in a global context (Stevens and Vaughan-Williams, 2016). According to Black et al. (2008), there are reasons to believe that climate change will greatly affect developing countries over the period to 2050. The framing of climate change has developed into an urgent threat to the security of the planet as well as the health of its inhabitants (Mayer, 2012; The Lancet Commissions, 2015; United Nations, 2015). Security researchers would conceptualize this as a move from traditional state security towards social and individual security. However, the literature on environment, climate change and security forms no coherent field (McDonald, 2018). Indeed, Fagan argues that the Anthropocene challenges dominating conceptualizations of security, which place the human at the centre (Fagan, 2017b). This could explain some of the difficulties in dealing with the environment in a traditional security context. However, we do not have the space to address the controversies in this field. Instead, we rely on McDonald (2018), who argues for an ecological security discourse which focuses on human and non-human vulnerability, including future generations. In line with this proposition, we theorize children’s vulnerabilities in the context of the climate crisis. Although parts of security studies have incorporated children into their analysis (Beier, 2015; Wagnsson et al., 2010; Watson, 2006), the climate crisis remains to be fully incorporated therein. The question is also if children have accepted the climate crisis as a threat.

The limited literature that has bothered to ask children about their own views and perspectives on security, safety and crisis has found that they seldom connect to national security discourses. The concerns of young people are fairly close to their everyday environment, and comprise issues such as traffic risks, sexual harassment and bullying (Johansson et al., 2012; Vornanen et al., 2009). Regarding values and issues seen as important by young children, knowledge is scarce (Green, 2017). However, results indicate that personal security is most important. Still, world peace and the protection of the environment scored high on important issues already a decade ago (Čeplak, 2006) – with the current focus on sustainability, recent research finds that children recognize the urgency for action and seriousness of the climate crisis for their future (Green, 2017).

Through the conceptualization of children as a climate precariat, the insecurity of children becomes manifest. Their survival is at stake. We argue that this is increasingly being recognized by children – whose perspectives of security are in the process of being broadened, as compared to previous research referred to above. Thunberg’s speeches could be interpreted as expressing the need for more securitization of this issue, a recognition that the threat from the climate crisis constitutes an existential threat – to children in particular:

We are now facing an existential crisis, the climate crisis, the ecological crisis – which has never been treated as a crisis before. They have been ignored for decades. And for way too long the politicians and the people in power have gotten away with not doing anything at all to fight the climate crisis. But we [children] will make sure that they do not get away with it any longer. (Thunberg, 2019: 54)

School strikers appear to experience insecurity due to the negative security effects that will be the consequence of the climate crisis. Indeed, children could be regarded as securitization actors (cf. Buzan et al., 1998) that collectively have securitized the climate crisis (cf. Floyd, 2019). The strategy to educate children in climate action can thus be seen as having effect (Corner et al., 2015; Green, 2017). Children have traditionally received little attention in security studies. Usually, they have been objectified as victims, sometimes they have been pictured as threats (Wessells, 1997), and – perhaps most seldom – they have been recognized as agents (Watson, 2006). They have also been used as resources for communication by other actors (Wagnsson et al., 2010).

Dealing with the climate crisis poses new challenges to governance, as a multitude of actors at different levels are affected and hold keys to the problem’s resolution. Dyer calls this situation ‘climate anarchy’ – where governance is fragmented (Dyer, 2014). It is possible that this situation opens up for new forms of agency, such as children’s moral agency (e.g. Noorgard and Reed, 2017; Pasupathi and Wainryb, 2010). For instance, resistance and consumer power may become interpreted by the climate precariat as a tool for achieving security. We will return to the issue of children’s agency in the concluding discussion.

The identity element of the climate precariat

The ‘original’ precariat suffer from lack of a work-identity and feelings of being left alone by politicians and even society. This creates an identity vacuum (Standing, 2016). How can this element of the concept be transferred to the climate precariat? Children’s protest emphasizes a similar disappointment with politicians, decision-makers and economic elites not acting strongly enough to confront the climate crisis. Parts of the adult society – climate deniers – are also contributing to the insecurity of children through not recognizing the severity of the crisis. Therefore, the othering of power elites – companies and world leaders – can be seen as an essential part of the climate precariat’s identity construction. We illustrate this through another Thunberg quote:

Some people say that we are not doing enough to fight climate change. But that is not true. Because to ‘not do enough’ you have to do something. And the truth is we are basically not doing anything. . . . And someone is to blame. Some people – and some companies and some decision-makers in particular – have known exactly what priceless values they are sacrificing to continue making unimaginable amounts of money. (Thunberg, 2019: 15–16)

From the above, one may interpret disillusion – due to the lack of responsibility taken among certain adults, in particular political elites and company leaders (cf. Hultman and Pulé, 2019). Implicit in this excerpt is also a lack of trust in political institutions, and the power of political leaders. The perceived threat is too abstract to be comprehended equally all over the world, and requires a structural change of lifestyle – indeed, the questioning of modernity itself – that seems impossible for children to achieve, at least at the speed that is necessary to halt carbon emissions. Climate change has been pictured as dystopia (McGillivray, 2017; Milner, 2009). In this context, the risk of paralysis is apparent (McGillivray, 2017).

Social identity theory has traditionally focused on intergroup relations, and lately this theoretical approach has been used to describe and explain divided beliefs on environmental challenges between different groups (Fielding and Hornsey, 2016). Through the concept of climate precariat, we add children as a societal group facing environmental consequences and expressing a strong opinion. Seen through the lens of social identity theory, children position themselves as an outgroup. This means that children recognize similarities between the self and other ingroup members, such as other climate activists and researchers (which are adults). They are also making an accentuation of differences between the self and outgroup members, based on interests. We illustrate:

You don’t listen to science because you are only interested in solutions that will enable you to carry on like before. Like now. And those answers don’t exist anymore. Because you did not act in time. (Thunberg, 2019: 65)

The concept of the climate precariat and the element of identity contribute to understanding the categorization or polarization between ingroup and outgroup that characterizes children’s protest. Social identity theory can explain asymmetrical power relations and illegitimate status differences between ingroups and outgroups. Conceptualizing children as a climate precariat means defining them as an outgroup and inactive political and company leaders as a privileged ingroup (cf. Fielding and Hornsey, 2016). Children’s climate activism is a sign of outgroup members perceiving their vulnerability as a new form of social identity. The shared problems underlying this identity are perceived as unfair and therefore children protest against it.

Another complicating factor is the abstract and complex nature of the problem of climate change itself. Who has responsibility to act – towards whom should demands for responsibility be directed? Researchers dealing with sustainability claim that knowledge is the most important factor for dealing with the climate crisis (Jerneck et al., 2011). It has also been shown that education efforts in the field of sustainability directed at young children effectively builds their knowledge (Green, 2017). As noted above, frustration due to lack of power and consciousness of the inaction on the part of the ones in power are significant traits of the identity component of the climate precariat. Criticism and shaming are an important part of children’s protest. Along the same line as Standing notes that the ‘original’ precariat is rising to power, it could be argued that the voices of the new climate precariat express feelings of power and action. Research shows that in spite of general expectations, children can act as agents for change if they are allowed (Gallagher, 2004). This has only been inhibited by the exclusionary practices that are commonly connected to the concept of ‘childhood’ (Garlen, 2019).

Concluding discussion

In this article, we have conceptualized children as a new climate precariat. The purpose of this effort has been to make visible the vulnerabilities of today’s children in the context of the climate crisis. Despite wide varieties in the lives of children and their experiences of the climate crisis across the world, we argue that the concept of climate precarity captures elements of vulnerability that are shared among children as a group due to the special character of the climate crisis. This concept theorizes the possibility of children recognizing the negative temporality aspect of being chained to the present time and becoming responsible for a dystopian future. It also conceptualizes the lack of security and sustainability of the whole planet and how this affects children. Finally, in terms of identity, through the conceptualization of a climate precariat, children can be seen as identifying themselves as an outgroup according to social identity theory. They experience disillusionment due to the inability of their parents’ generation, political and economic elites in particular, to take action and due to the diffuse and abstract character of the climate crisis as a threat. As pointed out in the introduction, this has not previously been recognized in the literature.

The concept of climate precariat can be used as a potential explanation for the global protest of 2019. It illustrates vulnerabilities that cannot be addressed through other means than by voice – a form of agency. Children react to the climate crisis and their perceived vulnerability because exit is no option. They have been the targets of educational efforts that may, sometimes, imply that their knowledge of climate change and its consequences may exceed that of adults (Green, 2017). Depending on social, economic and political contexts, children’s agency takes different forms – not every child addresses the UN or the EU, as did Greta Thunberg, but children’s agency may be important for transformations also at the level of the family and in local communities. In recognizing children’s resistance, collective action and empowerment at different levels become possible, legitimate and necessary. Children’s protest also spurs adults such as parents to act, as the independent nature of the problem becomes visible. Children may possess moral agency in promoting changes in lifestyle that may or may not be allowed to flourish depending on the local context. A problem for the climate precariat in acting as agents of change is the creeping crisis-character of climate change. This abstract character of the security threat may reduce the willingness for action. Knowledge is thus one weapon of children in the struggle for security.

The concept of climate precariat directs attention to the climate crisis and its social effects in the present, something that has largely been lacking in social science literature. In line with Standing’s observation, we argue that children – who have traditionally not been considered to hold independent political agency – are beginning to react and resist their position as a climate precariat. Children are a social and political force in the making, and attention needs to be directed to their concerns. Although research is still scarce, it could be assumed that being part of a climate precariat affects the identity of children. In the mid- to long-term, as children become youth and then adults, they gain formal political agency and power. At that time, their experiences may have wider political implications. It remains to be seen what implications the power of the climate precariat will have on the social order of the future.

The concept of a climate precariat illustrates how dystopian elements are facing children already today (cf. Hjerpe and Linnér, 2009; Milner, 2009). By reducing the abstraction of the term ‘future generations’ the acuteness and severity of the threat is pinpointed and an audience that can demand responsibility is recognized instead of silenced. If the precarity of children is recognized, social and political changes can be motivated. Children’s protest in 2019 showed no trace of paralysis. The global health crisis that followed the spread of Covid-19 in spring 2020 has prevented children from taking to the streets. Naturally, this imminent threat has also occupied media space. However, the discussion on the climate crisis continues in social media, and the awareness among children is not likely to have decreased. Visibility through physical appearance and protest was an important ingredient of Greta’s influence, but the long-term impact of less visible climate initiatives by thousands of children at the local level may be substantial. The aftermath of Covid-19 may also come to include an analysis of the unsustainability of current lifestyles and priorities, which produce vulnerabilities similar to the ones experienced by the climate precariat.

Children’s social platforms should be improved and their civil society involvement recognized by older generations. The arguments for political rights for children are strengthened in the light of the climate crisis and children’s precarity in this context. Future applications or theorization of the conceptualization should explore the interconnections of the elements that make up the climate precariat in more detail. Researchers should also reach out to children and analyse their views and experiences of precarity. The normative responsibility of social scientists in this context has been emphasized (Carter, 2007; Rosa et al., 2015). The agency and resistance of children that follow because of them becoming aware of their climate precarity should be studied, including the unconventional networks and forms of governance that may appear in efforts at countering climate change. The current social order will change due to the climate crisis, and social science should direct much more attention to what is to come.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We thank Malin Ahl and Miranda Holmberg for excellent research assistance. We are using multiple ‘first’ authors practice in this study. Both authors have contributed equally to the ideas in the article, design of the study, data collection and analysis, writing and the discussion.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Arita Holmberg

Author biographies

Arita Holmberg (PhD, Stockholm University, Sweden) is Associate Professor and Senior Lecturer in Political Science at the Department of Security, Strategy and Leadership at the Swedish Defence University. She has published within the field of security and defence transformation, security and defence policy, military organizations and resistance. Her current research concerns social and political challenges for the military organization, and children, security and sustainability. Her recent articles appear in Childhood and Gender, Work and Organization, among others.

Aida Alvinius (PhD, Karlstad University, Sweden) is an Associate Professor and Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the Department of Security, Strategy and Leadership, Swedish Defence University. She has published articles, chapters in books and research reports within the field of gender studies, organization and leadership, with focus on reproduced masculinities and working conditions for women in a military context. Her recent articles appear in Childhood, Gender, Work & Organization and International Journal for Masculinity Studies.

References

Alberti

Bessa

Hardy

, et al. (2018) In, against and beyond precarity: Work in insecure times. Work, Employment and Society 32(3): 447–457.

Beier

(2015) Children, childhoods, and security studies: An introduction. Critical Studies on Security 3(1): 1–13.

Black

Kniveton

Skeldon

, et al. (2008) Demographics and Climate Change: Future Trends and their Policy Implications for Migration. Brighton: University of Sussex, Development Research Centre on Migration, Globalisation and Poverty.

Bourdieu

(1986) The forms of capital. In: Richardson

(ed.) Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education. Westport, CT: Greenwood, pp. 241–258.

Bourdieu

(1991) Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge: Polity.

Bühler-Niederberger

(2010) Introduction. Childhood sociology – Defining the state of the art and ensuring reflection. Current Sociology 58(2): 155–164.

Bulkeley

(2019) Navigating climate’s human geographies: Exploring the whereabouts of climate politics. Dialogues in Human Geography 9(1): 3–17.

Butler

(2006) Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence. London: Verso.

Butler

(2015) Foreword. In: Lorey

(ed.) State of Insecurity: Government of the Precarious. London: Verso, pp. 7–11.

10.

Butler

Gambetti

Sabsay

(eds) (2016) Vulnerability in Resistance. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

11.

Buzan

Wæver

De Wilde

(1998) Security: A New Framework for Analysis. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.

12.

Campbell

Price

(2016) Precarious work and precarious workers: Towards an improved conceptualisation. The Economic and Labour Relations Review 27(3): 314–332.

13.

Carter

(2007) The Politics of the Environment: Ideas, Activism, Policy, 2nd edn. New York: Cambridge University Press.

14.

Čeplak

(2006) Values of young people in Slovenia: The search for personal security. Young 14(4): 291–308.

15.

Clark

Coll-Seck

Banerjee

, et al. (2020) A future for the world’s children? A WHO–UNICEF–Lancet Commission. Lancet 395(10224): 605–658.

16.

Corner

Roberts

Chiari

, et al. (2015) How do young people engage with climate change? The role of knowledge, values, message framing, and trusted communicators. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change 6(5): 523–534.

17.

Dyer

(2014) Climate anarchy: Creative disorder in world politics. International Political Sociology 8(2): 182–200.

18.

Editorial (2019) Future thinking. Nature Climate Change 9: 341.

19.

Elliott

(2018) The sociology of climate change as a sociology of loss. European Journal of Sociology/Archives Européennes de Sociologie 59(3): 301–337.

20.

Fagan

(2017a) Who’s afraid of the ecological apocalypse? Climate change and the production of the ethical subject. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 19(2): 225–244.

21.

Fagan

(2017b) Security in the Anthropocene: Environment, ecology, escape. European Journal of International Relations 23(2): 292–314.

22.

Fielding

Hornsey

(2016) A social identity analysis of climate change and environmental attitudes and behaviors: Insights and opportunities. Frontiers in Psychology 7: Article 121.

23.

Floyd

(2019) Collective securitization in the EU: Normative dimensions. West European Politics 42(2): 391–412.

24.

Gallagher

(2004) ‘Our town’: Children as advocates for change in the city. Childhood 11(2): 251–262.

25.

Garlen

(2019) Interrogating innocence: ‘Childhood’ as exclusionary social practice. Childhood 26(1): 54–67.

26.

Global Citizen (2019) 12 female climate activists who are saving the planet. Available at: www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/female-activists-saving-planet/

27.

Goldthorpe

(2009) Analysing social inequality: A critique of two recent contributions from economics and epidemiology. European Sociological Review 26(6): 731–744.

28.

Gorz

(1982) Farewell to the Working Class: An Essay on Post-Industrial Socialism. London: Pluto Press.

29.

Green

(2017) ‘If there’s no sustainability our future will get wrecked’: Exploring children’s perspectives of sustainability. Childhood 24(2): 151–167.

30.

Hagedorn

Kalmus

Mann

, et al. (2019) Concerns of young protesters are justified. Science 364(6436): 139–140.

31.

Hamilton

(2019) I am uncertain but We are not: A new subjectivity of the Anthropocene. Review of International Studies 45(4): 607–626.

32.

Hammami

(2016) Precarious politics: The activism of ‘bodies that count’ (aligning with those that don’t) in Palestine’s colonial frontier. In: Butler

Gambetti

Sabsay

(eds) Vulnerability in Resistance. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 167–190.

33.

Harvey

(2016) The discourse of the ecological precariat: Making sense of social disruption in the Lower Ninth Ward in the long-term aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Sociological Forum 31(S1): 862–884.

34.

Hewison

Kalleberg

(2013) Precarious work and flexibilization in South and Southeast Asia. American Behavioral Scientist 57(4): 395–402.

35.

Hjerpe

Linnér

(2009) Utopian and dystopian thought in climate change science and policy. Futures 41(4): 234–245.

36.

Holmberg

Alvinius

(2020) Children’s protest in relation to the climate emergency: A qualitative study on a new form of resistance promoting political and social change. Childhood 27(1): 78–92.

37.

Hom

(2018) Silent order: The temporal turn in critical International Relations. Millennium 46(3): 303–330.

38.

Hultman

Pulé

(2019) Ecological masculinities: A response to the Manthropocene question? In: Gottzén

Mellström

Shefer

Grimbeek

(eds) Routledge International Handbook of Masculinity Studies. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 477–487.

39.

Inglehart

(2008) Changing values among western publics from 1970 to 2006. West European Politics 31(1–2): 130–146.

40.

Jerneck

Olsson

Ness

, et al. (2011) Structuring sustainability science. Sustainability Science 6(1): 69–82.

41.

Johansson

Laflamme

Eliasson

(2012) Adolescents’ perceived safety and security in public space: A Swedish focus group study with a gender perspective. Young 20(1): 69–88.

42.

Jørgensen

(2016) Precariat – what it is and isn’t – towards an understanding of what it does. Critical Sociology 42(7–8): 959–974.

43.

Kerbo

(1996) Social Stratification and Inequality, 3rd edn. New York: McGraw-Hill.

44.

Koehrsen

Dickel

Pfister

, et al. (2020) Climate change in sociology: Still silent or resonating? Current Sociology 68(6): 738–760.

45.

Krekula

(2019) Time, precarisation and age normality: On internal job mobility among men in manual work. Ageing and Society 39(10): 2290–2307.

46.

Krekula

Johansson

(2017) Introduktion [Introduction]. In: Krekula

Johansson

(eds) Kritiska åldersstudier [Critical Age Studies]. Malmö: Studentlitteratur.

47.

Lorey

(2015) State of Insecurity: Government of the Precarious. London: Verso.

48.

Luisetti

(2019) Geopower: On the states of nature of late capitalism. European Journal of Social Theory 22(3): 342–363.

49.

Lundborg

(2012) Politics of the Event: Time, Movement, Becoming. Abingdon and New York: Routledge.

50.

MacDonald

Ford

Willox

Mitchell

(2015) Youth-led participatory video as a strategy to enhance Inuit youth adaptive capacities for dealing with climate change. Arctic 68(4): 486–499.

51.

Mayer

(2012) Chaotic climate change and security. International Political Sociology 6(2): 165–185.

52.

McDonald

(2018) Climate change and security: Towards ecological security? International Theory 10(2): 153–180.

53.

McGillivray

(2017) Tales of the Apocalypse: The child’s right to a secure climate. International Journal of Children’s Rights 25(2): 553–568.

54.

Milner

(2009) Changing the climate: The politics of dystopia. Continuum 23(6): 827–838.

55.

Natarajan

Brickell

Parsons

(2019) Climate change adaptation and precarity across the rural–urban divide in Cambodia: Towards a ‘climate precarity’ approach. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space 2(4): 899–921.

56.

Neilson

Rossiter

(2008) Precarity as a political concept, or, Fordism as exception. Theory, Culture and Society 25(7–8): 51–72.

57.

Norgaard

Reed

(2017) Emotional impacts of environmental decline: What can Native cosmologies teach sociology about emotions and environmental justice? Theory and Society 46(6): 463–495.

58.

O’Mahony

(2015) Climate change: Responsibility, democracy and communication. European Journal of Social Theory 18(3): 308–326.

59.

Oswell

(2013) The Agency of Children: From Family to Global Human Rights. New York: Cambridge University Press.

60.

Paret

(2016) Politics of agency and solidarity in an age of precarity. Global Labor Journal 7(2).

61.

Paret

Gleeson

(2016) Precarity and agency through a migration lens. Citizenship Studies 20(3–4): 277–294.

62.

Pasupathi

Wainryb

(2010) Developing moral agency through narrative. Human Development 53(2): 55–80.

63.

Rosa

Lessenich

Dörre

(2015) Sociology, Capitalism, Critique. London: Verso.

64.

Schilling

Blokland

Simone

(2019) Working precarity: Urban youth tactics to make livelihoods in instable conditions in Abidjan, Athens, Berlin and Jakarta. The Sociological Review 67(6): 1333–1349.

65.

Sewell

Jr (1996) Three temporalities: Towards an eventful sociology. In: McDonald

(ed.) The Historic Turn in the Human Sciences. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, pp. 245–280.

66.

Sewell

Jr (2005) Logics of History: Social Theory and Social Transformation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

67.

Sewell

Jr (2008) The temporalities of capitalism. Socio-Economic Review 6(3): 517–537.

68.

Skillington

(2015) Climate justice without freedom: Assessing legal and political responses to climate change and forced migration. European Journal of Social Theory 18(3): 288–307.

69.

Skrimshire

(2019) Deep time and secular time: A critique of the environmental ‘long view’. Theory, Culture and Society 36(1): 63–81.

70.

Smith

(2011) The New North: The World in 2050. London: Profile Books.

71.

Standing

(2010) Work after Globalization: Building Occupational Citizenship. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

72.

Standing

(2011) The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic.

73.

Standing

(2014) The precariat. Contexts 13(4): 10–12.

74.

Standing

(2016) The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class, revised edn. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic.

75.

Stevens

Vaughan-Williams

(2016) Citizens and security threats: Issues, perceptions and consequences beyond the national frame. British Journal of Political Science 46(1): 149–175.

76.

Switzer

Bent

Endsley

(2016) Precarious politics and girl effects: Exploring the limits of the girl gone global. Feminist Formations 28(1): 33–59.

77.

The Lancet Commissions (2015) Health and climate change: policy responses to protect public health. The Lancet 386(10006): 1861–1914.

78.

Thomas

Hardy

Lazrus

, et al. (2019) Explaining differential vulnerability to climate change: A social science review. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change 10(2): Article e565.

79.

Thomas Black

Milligan

Heynen

(2016) Solidarity in climate/immigrant justice direct action: Lessons from movements in the US South. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 40(2): 284–298.

80.

Thunberg

(2019) No One is Too Small to Make a Difference, expanded edn. London: Random House.

81.

Tyler

(2015) Classificatory struggles: Class, culture and inequality in neoliberal times. The Sociological Review 63(2): 493–511.

82.

United Nations (2015) Transforming our world: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Resolution adopted by the General Assembly, 25 September 2015.

83.

Utz

(2011) Negotiating heritage: Observations on semantic concepts, temporality, and the Centre of the Study of the Cultural Heritage of Medieval Rituals. Philologie im Netz 58: 70–87.

84.

Vornanen

Törrönen

Niemelä

(2009) Insecurity of young people: The meaning of insecurity as defined by 13–17-year-old Finns. Young 17(4): 399–419.

85.

Wagnsson

Hellman

Holmberg

(2010) The centrality of non-traditional groups for security in the globalised era: The case of children. International Political Sociology 4(1): 1–14.

86.

Watson

AMS

(2006) Children and international relations: A new site of knowledge? Review of International Studies 32(2): 237–250

87.

Wessells

(1997) Child soldiers. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 53(6): 32–39.

88.

White

(2017) Climate change and the generational timescape. The Sociological Review 65(4): 763–778.

89.

White

Wyn

Robards

(2017) Youth and Society. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.

90.

Yearley

(2009) Sociology and climate change after Kyoto: What roles for social science in understanding climate change? Current Sociology 57(3): 389–405