ULC337 - Performing Environmental Politics - 2023/24

What are the potentially generative roles of performativity, theatricality and rehearsal in decolonial demands for environmental justice? Situated against the backdrop of national and international environmental laws and summits, this module exposes students to a variety of experimental, grassroots initiatives that explore possibilities of environmental justice "from below". The module is centred around a series of case studies that include people’s tribunals and rights of nature tribunals, theatre and performance works including staged hearings, films, exhibitions and protests. We engage in a close reading of a range of forums and assemblies, each blurring lines between "fiction" and "reality", that contest existing political and legal frameworks and offer speculative propositions for alternative manners of understanding and enacting environmental justice.