Threats, Futures, Emotions
Led by .
We examine how environmental, political, technological and existential threats are felt, imagined and lived, and how these emotional landscapes shape the futures we anticipate, fear and work to create.
Our research explores the lived experience of crisis and uncertainty, attending to the ways anxiety, hope, grief and ambivalence circulate within families and communities as they confront precarious presents and uncertain horizons.
The group is dedicated to understanding emotion not as a private experience but as a social and political force. We investigate how feelings about threat inform action, inaction, solidarity and division across diverse social, cultural and intergenerational contexts.
We work across disciplines to illuminate the emotional dimensions of contemporary crises, and to ask what role human rights frameworks might play in fostering more just and liveable futures.
UN Sustainable Development Goals
Our projects
How parents manage climate anxiety: coping and hoping for the whole family
A/Prof Jordan McKenzie (CI), Prof Rebecca Olson (CI), A/Prof Fiona Charlson (CI), Prof Mary Holmes (PI), Adj/Prof Andreas Hernandez (PI)
This project studies how Australian parents manage climate anxiety for themselves and their families. Using mixed-methods/mixed-media approaches, it examines whether an increase in climate disasters is accelerating the spread of collective anxiety amongst families, how parents manage this anxiety for their children and partners, and if there are associated mental health burdens and gendered inequities in this management. It also looks at climate anxiety management across generations and climate histories, drawing out pessimistic/optimistic narratives about the future to enable action, resilience, and hope. It will produce an evidence base and photo-voice/documentary resources to help parents and support organisations combat climate anxiety.
Image: ' by Julian Meehan, , via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped from original.
