Projects
From September 2024 to February 2025, I am on research sabbatical.
During my sabbatical I am:
Conducting policy impact work on the "Radical Kindness" climate activism project, including with the European Commission
Applying for funding for YoARC: Young Action in Resilient Communities
Completing my monograph Young People's Politics in Action (Bristol University Press)
I am also, currently:
Editing the Routledge Handbook of Young People and Environmental Activism, along with my co-editor Dr Sadiya Akram.
Please find details of these, and all my projects, below.
All projects:
"Radical Kindness": the young climate activists transforming democracy
"Young people are leading the call for action on climate change. Young people’s visions for democratic change, and movements like the Fridays For Future school climate strikes are inspiring new approaches to democratic participation and new ideas about the role of young people in society"
Project status: Policy impact.
Come and see me at the European Youth Centre's Symposium on Young People, Democracy and Climate Action in Strasbourg, France, in September, 2024, hosted by the European Commission and Council for Europe "Youth Partnership".
Latest publication:
Read our policy chapter for the European Commission and Council of Europe!
All publications from this project:
Bowman, B., Kishinani, P., Pickard, S. and Smith, M. (2023). Radical Kindness: the young climate activists transforming democracy. In: Deželan, T., Bacalso, C. and Lodeserto, A. Youth political participation. Brussels: Council of Europe and European Commission, p. 15-33.
Pickard, S., Bowman, B. and Arya, D. (2022) Young People’s Environmental Activism. In: Grasso, M. and Giugni, M. (eds.) The Routledge Handbook of Environmental Movements. London: Routledge, 521–537.
Bowman, B. and Pickard, S. (2021) Peace, Protest and Precarity: Making Conceptual Sense of Young People’s Non-violent Dissent in a Period of Intersecting Crises. Journal of Applied Youth Studies, 4(5), 493–510
Pickard, S., Bowman, B. and Arya, D. (2020) ‘“We Are Radical In Our Kindness”: The Political Socialisation, Motivations, Demands and Protest Actions of Young Environmental Activists in Britain’. Youth and Globalization, 2(2), 250–279.
YoARC: Young Action in Resilient Communities
"The YoARC Laboratory (YoARC Lab) is a training centre in climate science for young people. Young people are the driving force behind the current “watershed moment” in climate politics. However, existing knowledge is “hyper-focussed” on high profile activists and demonstrations like climate strikes. Less is known about the majority of young people, who demonstrably prefer everyday actions that are “motivated by relationships of concern” and their “capacities to be change agents in their communities”.
Project status: Seeking funding.
I was unsuccessful in a bid for the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship in 2024, and I am seeking other funding opportunities.
HUMANE-CLIMATE: the civic potential of climate mobility (2022-2026)
"HUMANE–CLIMATE explores the potential of critical pedagogical interventions and youth climate action to raise awareness of climate mobility and encourage equitable encounters within ‘the humanitarian border’, in the empirical contexts of Athens, Greece and Tampere, Finland."
Find out more about our project here:
https://www.tuni.fi/en/research/humane-climate-civic-potential-climate-mobility
Young People in Times of Crises (2021-2024)
"Young people are central to the intersecting crises that democracy faces, including the climate crisis, an ongoing economic crisis since 2007–2008 and the continuing COVID-19 pandemic. In these challenging conditions, participatory research with young people is an approach at a critical turning point. The critical issue in participatory research, in times of crisis, is whether young people’s participation is worthwhile from their perspectives, and especially whether participatory research can make a positive difference to the crises young people are experiencing."
Project status: Publishing
My wide-ranging work on young people, young action and youth-led research is being published in handbooks, textbooks and volumes of theoretical work across the disciplines of sociology, political science, education, psychology, geography and research methods.
Latest publication:
Bowman, B. (2024) Young people and participatory research in times of crises. In: Bessant, J., Collin, P. and O'Keeffe, P. Research Handbook on the Sociology of Youth. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 401–415. (https://doi.org/10.4337/9781803921808.00044)
All publications from this project:
Bowman, B. (2024) Young people's voice and power in democracy: Supporting through action. In: Wyn, J., Cuervo, H. and Cahill, H. Childhood and Youth Studies Handbook. Singapore: Springer. (Online ahead of print: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-4451-96-3_116-1)
Bowman, B. (2023) Is it radical to be kind? New civic education in the era of young people's dissent. In: Haste, H. and Bempechat, J. New Civics, New Citizens: Critical, Competent and Responsible Agents. Leiden: Brill Publishers, pp. 23–38.
Hayes, T., Walker, C., Parsons, K., Arya, D., Bowman, B., Germaine, C., Lock, R., Langford, S., Peacock, S. and Thew, H. (2022). In it together! Cultivating space for intergenerational dialogue, empathy and hope in a climate of uncertainty. Children's Geographies (online ahead of print). DOI: 10.1080/14733285.2022.2121915
Walker, C. and Bowman, B. (2022). Young People and Climate Activism. Oxford Bibliographies: Childhood Studies, ed. Montgomery, H. New York: Oxford University Press.
Bowman, B., Haste, H. and Magioglou, T. (2022). Can I Trust My Future? Youth Civic Engagement, Civic Identity and Dystopias. In: Weinberg, A. (ed.), The Psychology of Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 332–353.
Bowman, B. (2022) Remix this method: a creative approach to young people’s everyday politics. Journal of Youth Studies, 25(1), 493–510.
Bowman, B., Bell, K. and Alexis-Martin, B. (2021) Youth, Climate and Environmentalism. In: Bell, K. (ed.), Diversity and Inclusion in Environmentalism. London: Routledge, 132–147.
YoCLI: Young Climate Imaginaries (2020-2022)
Currently updating.
Check out our teaching tool for educators, published by the University of California Press:
https://www.existentialtoolkit.com/benjamin-bowman-chloe-germaine-pooja-kishinani-and-charlie-balchin
All publications from this project:
Bowman, B. and Germaine, C. (2022). Sustaining the old world, or imagining a new one? The transformative literacies of the climate strikes. Australian Journal of Environmental Education 38(1) p. 70-84.
Germaine, C. and Bowman, B. (2021) The Youth Climate Strike as Cultural Exchange and Collaborative Text. In: Crawford, N. and Mikulewicz, M. (eds.) Cultural Relations and Climate Change. London: British Council, 12–24.
Youthquakes: young people and climate action (2019-2020)
Currently updating.
All publications from this project:
Bowman, B. (2020) ‘They don’t quite understand the importance of what we’re doing today’: the young people’s climate strikes as subaltern activism’. Sustainable Earth, 3(16), 1-13.
Bowman, B. (2019) ‘Imagining future worlds alongside young climate activists: a new framework for research’. Fennia - International Journal of Geography, 197(2), 295–305.