Care-full climate justice organising: Movement-based participatory Action Research on Noongar Boodja
Author Identifier
Kylie Wrigley: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4589-0866
Date of Award
2024
Document Type
Thesis
Publisher
Edith Cowan University
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy
School
School of Arts and Humanities
First Supervisor
Naomi Godden
Second Supervisor
Mindy Blaise
Third Supervisor
Jaime Yallup Farrant
Abstract
Aligned with emerging research agendas for critical (intersectional and decolonial) climate justice, this research aims to co-create place-based knowledges and actions about how communities and movements organise for climate justice. Organising for climate justice in Western Australia (WA) is particularly difficult because of the strong influence of the fossil fuel industry and the prevailing racial capitalist, colonial, and patriarchal responses to climate change in policy and mainstream climate movements. These systems of power often reproduce, for example, intersecting gender, race, and class inequalities, which marginalise communities most impacted by climate injustice. Moreover, many climate activists experience climate distress and burnout. Against this backdrop, this research asks two overarching questions: First, what are the barriers and opportunities for a critical climate justice community in Australia and Western Australia? Second, how can critical climate justice be practised and enacted through organising in Western Australia? Recognising social movements as sites of learning and prefiguration and social movements as producers of knowledge-practices, this research is operationalised through a novel approach to engaged activist research called Movement-based Participatory Action Research (PAR). The transdisciplinary research is informed by my positionality as an organiser, a partnership with Climate Justice Union WA, secondary data, and two original studies conducted with Australian organisers, advocates, and activists. The secondary data is sourced from a consciousness-raising program, informed by Feminist PAR, where Australian climate activists and organisations learned about, reflected on, and planned actions for intersectional gender-just climate solutions to explore barriers to intersectional climate justice. One original study used a process of reflective conversations and collective analysis with practitioners, organisers, and public servants to explore barriers and enablers for climate justice through a climate and health community of practice in WA. The other study involved a youth training program on climate justice, systemic advocacy and collective care which identified and developed practices for supporting young climate justice advocates. The analysis attends to “behind the scenes” care and relational practices of local activists and organisers, examining how these enact care and multiple dimensions of justice. This thesis, by publication, concludes by arguing for more care-full climate justice organising and contributes to scholarship and society in three ways.
1) It adds critical conceptions of challenges and opportunities for climate justice, particularly in the racial capitalist, settler colonial context of Australia.
2) It develops practical knowledges and examples of relational justice, critical climate justice praxis, and collective care organising praxis for climate justice.
3) It extends PAR with a novel Movement-based PAR approach.
DOI
10.25958/t8pt-9v21
Access Note
Access to this thesis is embargoed until 19th June 2026.
Recommended Citation
Wrigley, K. A. (2024). Care-full climate justice organising: Movement-based participatory Action Research on Noongar Boodja. Edith Cowan University. https://doi.org/10.25958/t8pt-9v21