Futures Beyond Crisis: Climate Movements, Post-Development, and the Framing of Desirable Futures
2026 (English)Independent thesis Advanced level (degree of Master (Two Years)), 20 credits / 30 HE credits
Student thesis
Abstract [en]
As the consequences of climate change deepen amid continued political inaction, questions about desirable futures beyond the current development trajectory become increasingly urgent. In this context, climate movements have emerged as actors that imagine and articulate alternative futures. Therefore, this thesis aimed to scrutinise how Fridays for Future and Extinction Rebellion, as social movements, frame desirable futures in response to the climate crisis. Inspired by post-development thinking and social movement theory, this thesis analyses how these framings of desirable futures reproduce, challenge, or move beyond the dominant development discourse towards a pluriverse, understood as the coexistence of multiple worlds and knowledge systems. The thesis employed qualitative content analysis, with the theoretical framework serving a central methodological role. Empirical material was collected from the official global websites of the two movements, and statements containing elements of prognostic framing, understood as framings of desirable futures, were identified as the primary units of analysis. The study found that both movements frame desirable futures through overlapping yet sometimes conflicting visions centred around ecological care, scientific authority, democratic participation, climate justice, and system change. While the movements frame futures that challenge dominant assumptions of the development discourse, the analysis also showed that these futures remain partly embedded within the structures of knowledge, governance, and progress associated with the discourse. The findings further suggest that while both movements’ vagueness regarding desirable futures could be seen in pluriversal terms, XR explicitly opens space for plural futures. Overall, the thesis concludes that the desirable futures framed by the movements occupy an ambivalent position between critique and continuity: they destabilise dominant development discourse and create openings toward alternative futures, yet do not fully imagine coherent alternatives beyond development itself.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2026. , p. 51
Keywords [en]
Fridays for Future, Extinction Rebellion, Desirable Futures, Prognostic Framing, Post-Development
National Category
Environmental Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-61044OAI: oai:DiVA.org:sh-61044DiVA, id: diva2:2085930
Subject / course
Environmental Science
Supervisors
Examiners
2026-07-132026-07-112026-07-13Bibliographically approved