Type

Journal Article

Author(s)

Baldwin, A.

Title

Orientalising environmental citizenship: climate change, migration and the potentiality of race

Date

2012

Journal

Citizenship Studies

Vol (No), pp

16(5-6), 625-640

Abstract

This article theorises the notion of environmental citizenship in the context of climate change and migration discourse. The central claim of the article is that postcolonial theory is inadequate for fully coming to terms with the way in which the figure of the climate change migrant works as an oppositional referent to the environmental citizen. This is because postcolonial theory tends to trace how the colonial past animates the present, whereas climate change and migration discourse is written almost exclusively in the future-conditional tense. The resulting analysis focuses on the consequences the future-conditionality of climate change and migration discourse has for conceptualising environmental citizenship in the context of climate change. One such consequence is that the category `race’ must be reconceptualised as a future potential of bodies rather than the effect of historical signification.

Citation

Baldwin, A. (2012). Orientalising environmental citizenship: climate change, migration and the potentiality of race. Citizenship Studies, 16(5-6), 625-640. DOI : 10.1080/13621025.2012.698485.