Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

This paper aims to explore how young Kenyans involved in environmental organizations understand the issue of environmental degradation in general and climate change in specific, as well as how the youth environmental organisations possess space of action in order to mobilize themselves in line with this point of view. The research is based on a case study exploring how three clubs in western Kenya interpret and act on environmental issues and climate change. By using a combination of frame theory, resource mobilization theory and norm diffusion this research captures the expressions and practices of the clubs. The clubs find deforestation and solid waste management to be Kenya’s biggest environmental problems and emerging into activities such as tree-planting and clean-ups. Those activities might be chosen because they, for the moment, seem to be politically neutral or supported by the authority. The Kenyan society’s view on youth are mainly as ‘trouble makers’ and the clubs are therefore negotiating their way through administrative obstacles and potential risks. Their space of action is controlled and the decisions made in the club are influenced from external forces, but the members are active within the system, carving out room for themselves and their visions within the Kenyan political system. The paper is also exploring how the clubs are introduced to global discourses like climate change and connected to the global environmental movement.