Weaving plural collectives in climate activism

How can diverse views on climate change translate into concerted action? Farhan Samanani explores this theme.

Looking up into a green tree canopy under a blue sky. Image by Stacey Gabrielle Koenitz Rozells / Pexels

Back to All Events

Weaving plural collectives in climate activism

06 Mar 2025, 12:00 – 13:00

G03
55-59 Gordon Square
London
WC1H 0NU
United Kingdom

Social scientists have long struggled to highlight how different human and non-human actors understand, experience and must navigate climate change in radically different ways. This plurality of positions and stakes is often framed in contrast to the singularity of dominant narratives of climate change and the policies they inform.

Farhan explores a form of climate activism that weaves together forms of plurality, rather than denying them, drawing on expertise as an ethnographer and organiser working with the community-organising coalition, Citizens UK.

Exploring how a campaign from Citizens UK grew by holding together different, incommensurable ideas of climate change, justice, and worlds worth fighting for, Farhan theorises climate activism as the art of weaving partial connections through practices of translation that do not render worlds fully legible or interchangeable, but that hold them in relation nonetheless.

This event will be particularly useful for those interested in climate change, justice, activism, anthropology and social science.

Image

Stacey Gabrielle Koenitz Rozells via Pexels.

Farhan Samanani

Lecturer in Social Justice

King’s College London

His research explores how people cultivate understanding, connection and common cause across meaningful differences.

An anthropologist by training, he has published widely across a range of disciplines, on topics including care, street cultures, social science theories of power, building more collective responses to climate change, and ethnographic methods.