Repair and care: Locating the work of climate crisis

Abstract

Climate crisis has arrived, and as predicted it has brought with it high levels of uncertainty. More frequent and extreme weather events expose infrastructural shortcomings, signalling a future characterised by profound disruption. It is time to turn our attention to the tangible work of climate crisis. Work is fundamental to embodied, material and spatial understandings of the world, yet it remains largely overlooked in social and cultural geography. What does the work of climate crisis look like, and who will do it? In this paper I argue that climate crisis demands more attention be paid to the deeply interwoven labours of repair and care. Reflecting on fieldwork across a range of carbon-intensive sectors and places, I locate the work of repair and care within the context of adaptation and mitigation action. Capacities to repair and care for our world and each other are profoundly important for adapting to the conditions of planetary breakdown. But the work of repair and care is also crucial for transitioning to low-carbon futures. A focus on this vital work suggests a deeply pragmatic and inclusive environmental politics and scholarship, bringing into dialogue rich veins of work within and beyond geography, on labour and everyday life.