Rural Youth Facing the Anthropocene: Everyday Practices for a Resilient Future
Climate change, causing rising temperatures, unpredictable weather patterns, droughts, and floods affect farming put touristic and agricultural activities at stake, increasing the already dramatic rural migration to urban areas. The exodus from rural regions exacerbates social and economic issues such as depopulation, aging communities, and the loss of cultural heritage tied to traditional farming practices. As much as young people would like to stay or return to these territories, limited access to education, mobility deficits and unreliable access to modern technologies make it increasingly difficult. For those who stay, these gaps limit their opportunities to learn new skills and engage with innovative networks that could help their communities adapt to environmental changes. However, although being marginalized and underrepresented in discourses concerning climate activism, rural youth does participate ecological protection actions and practices, provided they have the means and the opportunity to do so.
This presentation focuses the narratives of 12 young people, aged between 15 and 17 years old engaged in an environmental activism program in Gouveia, Serra da Estrela, Portugal, between the years of 2019 and 2021. Adopting the lenses of the resonance theory, the analysis focuses on the ways that rural young people relate to non-human nature, provide a portrait on the lives of youngsters who live in rural contexts, of their everyday encounters and debates. It argues although environmental activism for youth in rural areas is dependent on resources and infrastructures, it can also be found in solitary and slow resilience practices.