Creating Caribbean climate imaginaries: (Post) Apocalyptic narratives in Caribbean climate activism

Title (eng)
Creating Caribbean climate imaginaries: (Post) Apocalyptic narratives in Caribbean climate activism
Author
Kaela van der Vaart López
Advisor
Daniel Cardoso
Advisor
Marguerite Barry
Description (eng)
This thesis explores how Caribbean climate activists deploy (post)apocalyptic imaginaries to frame environmental crises, challenging dominant western environmental discourse through alternative epistemological frameworks. Drawing on a qualitative multi-method approach, the research combines framework analysis of 215 high-engagement Instagram posts with narrative analysis of a focus group with Caribbean climate activists to uncover patterns of temporal framing, emotional repertoires, and creative resistance practices. Epistemologies of the south and social movement theory provide the theoretical lenses through which these (post)apocalyptic constructions are interpreted, offering a perspective that treats both apocalyptic collapse and post-apocalyptic regeneration as co-present rather than sequential. Findings reveal that Caribbean activists utilize a distinctive (post)apocalyptic temporality characterized by spiral rather than linear time, where historical catastrophes like colonialism and ongoing climate disasters converge in recursive loops of memory, crisis, and imagination. In addition to well-documented emotional strategies like hope and grief, the study highlights the underexplored role of creative practices such as religare—the reweaving of colonial fragments through art, ritual, and storytelling. The research demonstrates how activists navigate “the paradox of hope” by feeling demobilizing and activating emotions simultaneously, while also identifying how hybrid Caribbean identity and spiritual-ecological relationality function as epistemic alternatives to nature/culture binaries. This research offers a decolonial understanding of climate activism from the global majority, contributing conceptual and empirical insights relevant to environmental movements, climate communication scholars, and practitioners seeking to center marginalized epistemologies in sustainability transitions.
Keywords (eng)
climate justice(post)apocalyptic imaginariesCaribbeanepistemologies of the southdecolonial environmentalism
Type (eng)
Master theses
Language
[eng]
Persistent identifier
https://door.donau-uni.ac.at/o:5734
Date created
2025
License
All rights reserved