Alternative Futures in a Heating World: Visions and Vision Work of the Swedish Climate Movement

This book develops the concepts of vision and vision work in relation to the study of social movements and applies it to an empirical investigation of how the climate movement envisions what a fossil-free and just future could look like. Using a dynamic approach, it develops an understanding of the challenges and processes through which visions come about – or may struggle to do so. The book moreover assesses the resonance of movement visions among political elites and the broader public. The analysis focuses on Sweden, a long-term leader in climate action and the cradle of the Fridays For Future movement, but also a country that like many others struggles to meet the demands of climate science. How might the vision work of the climate movement enable societies to escape their carbon lock-in?

Joost de Moor is FNRS Research Professor in political science at the Institute of Political Science Louvain-Europe (ISPOLE) at UC Louvain. He has published on social movements, political participation, and environmental politics across several disciplines. His work studies how political, urban, and ecological contexts shape strategies and imaginaries in environmental movements.

Mattias Wahlström is Professor of Sociology at the Department of Sociology and Work Science, University of Gothenburg, where he is also Deputy Head of Department with responsibility for resarch and postgraduate education. Wahlström is also co-coordinator of the research group CSM-RESIST. He has published extensively on social movements, protests, and governance of dissent. Wahlström was the principal investigator of the project on which this planned volume is based.

Lotte Schack, PhD, is affiliate researcher at the Department of Sociology and Work Science, University ofGothenburg. Her research concerns social movements, the climate crisis and social reproduction.

Katrin Uba is Associate Professor at the Department of Government, Uppsala University, Sweden. Her main research interests are the mobilisation of climate and labour movements and the political impact of social movements with a particular focus on environmental movements. She is associate editor of the journal Social Movement Studies.

Magnus Wennerhag is Professor of Sociology at the School of Social Sciences, Södertörn University, Sweden, where he is also coordinator for the research platform Contested Democracy. His research mainly concerns social movements, political participation, social stratification, political violence, and sociological theory.