Epistemic Resistance on the Margins: Climate Activism, Social Media, and the Global South

Abstract

Climate activism in the Global South is embedded in multiple forms of ‘precarity’ (Butler, 2012; Standing, 2016) confronting acute climate phenomena within a socio-political model characterised by government-corporation nexus and declining democratic norms.  With the rise of new media, the internet has become an integral part of this experience, shaping platform structures through digital colonisation. Meanwhile, young climate activists grapple with the perennial experience of the digital divide while navigating state surveillance and repression, including censorship and limits on access to information. With a special focus on narratives of resistance, this paper examines how young activists challenge dominant narratives of climate change, negotiating the precarity of digital space with a special focus on Instagram. This research uses a Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA) anchored in theories of ‘epistemic resistance’ (Medina, 2013; Murphy, 2021) and analyses the politics of textual-visual representations from young climate change activists in the Global South. This study examines how these activists navigate self-representation, engage with audience(s), and adapt to digital constraints while advocating climate issues. In doing so, this paper highlights the complexities of limited visibility and inherent biases of platform structures. It argues that young activists in the Global South, standing witness to the bleak climate phenomena unfolding around them, trigger newer forms of ‘epistemic resistance’ while documenting and representing otherwise marginalised voices.