Political Geography 98 (2022) 102721 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Political Geography journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/polgeo Full Length Article Emotional healing as part of environmental and climate justice processes: Frameworks and community-based experiences in times of environmental suffering Marien González-Hidalgo a, *, Daniela Del Bene b, Irene Iniesta-Arandia b, c, Concepción Piñeiro d, e a Department of Urban and Rural Development. Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Box 7012, Uppsala, 750 07, Sweden b Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA-UAB), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Edifici ICTA-ICP, Carrer de les Columnes s/n, Campus de la UAB, 08193, 08193, Cerdanyola del Vallès, Barcelona, Spain c Fractal collective, San Remigio, 2, 28022, Madrid, Spain d Altekio Iniciativas hacia la Sostenibilidad, S.Coop.Mad, Paseo de las Acacias, 3, 28005, Madrid, Spain e FUHEM, Av. de Portugal, 79, posterior, 28011 Madrid, Spain A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T Keywords: This paper seeks to discuss the political role of healing practices in the context of climate and environmental Healing justice struggles. We rely on literature and practices that have identified healing as a means for liberation from Climate justice structural oppression and physical and symbolic violence, to humans, non-humans and nature – namely Environmental justice emotional political ecologies, transformative and healing justice and communitarian feminism. We also briefly Emotions discuss the experience of three collectives in Mexico, Colombia, and Spain who develop healing strategies as a Political ecology way to emotionally support local communities exposed to territorial, environmental, and climate impacts and injustice. We argue that by further addressing the political dimensions of healing in environmental and climate justice, researchers, activists, and practitioners could expand the conceptualisation of (a) the spatial and tem­ poral scales of climate justice by further engaging with the inter- and intra-generational emotional implications of environmental injustice, and (b) environmental and climate justice as a multidimensional and nonlinear collective emotional process. 1. Introduction change”1 echoes the “emotional turn” in academic, practitioner and activist forums, increasingly interested in analysing and denouncing the “When I look around in nature and at other non-human beings, my emotional, unequal impacts of environmental and climate change body is full of pain and sorrow … I realise how I am full of contra­ (González-Hidalgo & Zografos, 2020). This increasing attention is to be dictions, but I also know I am alive thanks to nature” (participant of welcomed, since emotional and psycho-social health issues related to an open forum in Madrid, Spain, 2018). climate change tend to be less visible to scholars and practitioners than physical ones (Ingle & Mikulewicz, 2020), even if several authors have This opening quote of one of the vignettes we will present below reported how floods, fires, and droughts generate infinitely different exemplifies how an increasing number of people experience intense ways of experiencing loss, distress, and trauma (see for example the emotional burdens when they embody, witness, or suffer the impacts of review by Tschakert et al., 2019), and how these tend to be especially environmental and climate change and injustices in their everyday life. hard to bear precisely for those communities less responsible for climate Climate change hurts – not just physically, but also emotionally. The change (Kaijser & Kronsell, 2014). In fact, feeling harmed by the recent popularisation of the term “eco-anxiety” in the media of the transformation of the environment is not new, invisible, or intangible, Global North, defined as the “extreme worry about current and future especially in colonised territories (Ferdinand, 2016), and in those which harm to the environment caused by human activity and climate * Corresponding author. E-mail address: marien.gonzalez.hidalgo@slu.se (M. González-Hidalgo). 1 https://languages.oup.com/word-of-the-year/2019/, last access May 2021. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2022.102721 Received 13 June 2021; Received in revised form 14 July 2022; Accepted 15 July 2022 Available online 13 September 2022 0962-6298/© 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). M. González-Hidalgo et al. Political Geography 98 (2022) 102721 have been historically configured as sacrifice zones (Lerner, 2012) or literature on environmental justice through the lens of emotional po­ extractivisized territories that supply the economies of the Global North litical ecologies, transformative and healing justice and communitarian and global capitalist elites (Martinez-Alier & Walter, 2016). Evidence of feminism, and define emotional healing as a political process in envi­ the emotional impacts of environmental dispossession, contamination ronmental and climate justice scenarios. Section 3 describes our and the development paradigm imposed on to Indigenous, subaltern, methods and positionality. Section 4 presents three short vignettes of poor and racialised communities are numerous (Cunsolo & Ellis, 2018; healing experiences which we have observed, participated in, or facili­ González-Hidalgo & Zografos, 2017; Gravante & Poma, 2016; Nightin­ tated in Mexico, Colombia and Spain. The vignettes illustrate diverse gale, 2013; Sultana, 2011; Tschakert, 2012; Woodbury, 2019). Figures ways that local communities seek to foster emotional healing processes also confirm this: from the over 3700 cases of environmental conflicts in contexts of environmental, climatic and territorial injustice: dealing registered in the Global Atlas of Environmental Justice (EJAtlas)2 by with individual and collective traumas associated with structural July 2022, 30% of the cases include impacts such as stress, depression violence in the context of social mobilisation (as in the case of Edupaz in and suicide from communities. Such emotional suffering adds to the Chiapas, Mexico), by engaging with the bodily and emotional impacts of high levels of violence and material injustices that land and environ­ climate and environmental injustice and seeking specific practices to mental defenders bear in their daily life (Del Bene et al., 2018; Scheidel improve collective well-being (as in the case of Ríos Vivos in rural et al., 2020). Colombia), or by directly engaging with the emotional implications of Considering the “one thousand ways to experience loss” (Tschakert opposed visions and responsibilities regarding climate change (as in the et al., 2019), this paper seeks to discuss how individuals, communities case of Altekio in Madrid, Spain). Section 5 discusses our findings and movements struggle to cope, manage and emotionally heal those around how healing practices may contribute to environmental and losses and environmental injustices. We first define healing as a political climate justice, and its spatial and political implications. Section 6 process in environmental justice, through the lenses of emotional po­ concludes by describing the main lessons learned to further inquiries litical ecologies, transformative and healing justice, and communitarian into environmental and climate justice. feminism. These literatures help us define emotional healing in envi­ ronmental justice as a multidimensional, structural, and embodied 2. Defining healing as a political process in environmental process. We then engage with three different healing experiences in justice: emotional political ecologies, healing and transformative Indigenous territories in Mexico, rural areas in Colombia, and in urban justice, communitarian feminism Spain – each exposed to long-lasting environmental and climate in­ equalities. These experiences are examples of how – in spite of the brutal Environmental justice scholarship has increasingly aimed to address unequal material impacts of climate and environmental injustice – the role of emotions in the creation and experience of environmental Indigenous, peasant, and urban communities and movements struggle to injustice and violence (Kojola & Pellow, 2021). However, topics asso­ defend their lives, neighbourhoods and territories, while confronting ciated with human well-being began to be explicitly considered in present as well as inter-generational ecological traumas environmental justice literature only once a fourth dimension, capabil­ (González-Hidalgo, 2020; Middleton, 2010). The community-based ex­ ities, was added to the three well-established and largely-discussed di­ periences lead by collectives in Mexico, Colombia and Spain highlight mensions of environmental justice: distribution, participation, and how engaging with healing practices as multidimensional, structural recognition (Agyeman et al., 2016; Schlosberg, 2009). The capabilities and embodied provides a more nuanced understanding of climate justice principle, inspired by the work of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum, across time and space; and how focusing on healing as an ambivalent emphasises the capacities necessary for people to function fully in the process can help us to further consider environmental and climate jus­ lives they choose for themselves, focusing not just on the distribution of tice as a multidimensional and non-linear collective emotional process. goods they need to flourish, but also on the processes they depend on for We discuss how this perspective contributes to an emerging field of that flourishing to occur (Schlosberg & Carruthers, 2010). Importantly, research that focuses on the transformative potential of environmental Sen’s understanding of capabilities includes the possibility to feel and and climate justice struggles (see Scheidel et al., 2018; Temper & Del experience emotions: “in general, to love, to grieve, to experience Bene, 2016; Asara et al., 2015). longing, gratitude, and justified anger” (Sen, 2000: 78–80, 2006a: 76–8, Our focus in emotional healing as connected to environmental and cited in Schlosberg, 2009: 31–32). The climate justice movement has climate justice struggles reveals how emotional implications related to helped to make more explicit this concern for well-being (Edwards et al., environmental and climate justice have material, land, cultural and 2016), highlighting the importance of “living well” within a community, language consequences, but also emotional implications, which also which includes, for example, legal rights for species and ecological need to be considered in research and activist agendas. By connecting systems (Schlosberg & Collins, 2014). Similarly, the emerging field of the recent interest among political ecologists in exploring the political transformative environmental justice points at conflicts as trans­ role of emotion and affect in environmental struggles with environ­ formative forces towards sustainability across scales: global, collective, mental and climate justice literatures (González-Hidalgo & Zografos, and individual actions have cognitive, affective, and relational impacts 2020), we also contribute to the exploration of synergies and cross fer­ which might eventually lead to radical societal transformations, stron­ tilisations between (transformative) environmental justice and political ger social bonds, and community identity (Kothari, 2014; Scheidel et al., ecology, as recently suggested by Svarstad and Benjaminsen (2020). We 2018; Temper et al., 2018). Socio-environmental conflicts can thus also hope to encourage political geographers to further engage with the represent the context in which communities and movements defend role of emotions and processes of healing as key political and their foundational or sacred principles of living together, but also geographical experiences. In fact, while health and therapeutic experi­ eradicate the original causes of inequities, and at the same time trans­ ences are analysed as defining relationships between humans and form and shape new spaces and new agreements of coexistence among non-human natures (see for example Hausermann, 2020; Williams, individuals, families, communities and non-human entities. Hernán­ 2010), there is still a lack of discussion of how these healing experiences dez-Saca and Cannon recently defined healing as “a life-long process of can potentially facilitate, influence or generate (eco-)political processes becoming aware of one’s pain, broadly defined, and entering into a of transformation at the interface of private and public spaces (Painter, relationship with that pain in order to transform from that pain into 2008). some sense of internal and external reconciliation and transcendence” The paper is structured as follows. In Section 2, we review the (2019: 244). But, how would we define healing in the context of envi­ ronmental and climate injustice? While several works in environmental justice studies mention the 2 See https://ejatlas.org/, last access July 2022. need of communities affected by environmental harm to “heal” (see for 2 M. González-Hidalgo et al. Political Geography 98 (2022) 102721 example incipient texts by Bullard and Wright (1990)), healing as a attachment to one’s place or territory acts as a driver for collective political process tends to be under-explored in the literature of political healing; 5) the personal–political refers to the acknowledgment of power geography in general and environmental justice in particular, and there inequalities in which all these feelings and everyday experiences are are therefore limited discussions around the specific ways in which we embedded. can learn to (politically) heal such pains. However, as Westoby et al. Decolonial and Indigenous environmental justice perspectives weave (2021) point out, Indigenous, Black and feminist epistemologies and all these dimensions together in that the individual is a unity of mind, practices increasingly offer key aspects and strategies to (emotionally) body and spirit; inter-exists with non-human kin; merges with the col­ survive in the face of climate change. We therefore engage with some of lective; has profound roots in its territory; and transcends generations. In these conceptual frameworks, experiences and practices developed fact, what appears to be environmental and climate justice struggles within social movements, environmental justice organisations, and against specific polluting or destructive projects also includes broader activist research, in which healing is increasingly being identified as an claims such as the historical reclamation of land, sovereignty, Indige­ urgent and transversal need across cultures and historical legacies, with nous languages and cosmovisions and, among others, educational and a political understanding of healing as a means for liberation of struc­ health systems as collective self-determination for advancing peoples’ tural oppressions and physical and symbolic violence. In the next three aspirations and resistance to oppression (Whyte, 2020). Indigenous subsections we engage with three of these legacies from which envi­ knowledge systems also transcend species and temporal boundaries in ronmental and climate justice literature could learn: emotional political that environmental and climate justice imply healing our relationship ecologies, transformative and healing justice, and communitarian with the Earth, with all living beings, and more-than-human relatives, as feminism. Following this, we briefly highlight some key aspects that well as with the spiritual world and our ancestors (McGregor, 2018). these literatures and practices bring to define healing as a political This multidimensional understanding of healing is eloquently expressed process: multidimensionality, structurality, and embodiment. by Ladonna Brave Bull, one of the community leaders of the Standing Rock camp in Indigenous Dakota land: “We want every last oil and gas 2.1. Healing as a multidimensional process: emotional political ecologies pipe removed from her [Mother Earth’s] body. We want healing. We want clean water. We want to determine our own future”. Defending the Recent work on “emotional political ecologies” has drawn attention sacred water acquires a profound meaning rooted in the colonial history to the conceptual, methodological, and political implications of emo­ of the United States: “To save our water, we have to break the cycle of tions in environmental conflicts and mobilisations (Sultana, 2015; colonial trauma”.3 González-Hidalgo & Zografos, 2020). Several works have reported how environmental degradation, conflicts, and mobilisation generate 2.2. Healing as a response to structural violence: transformative and emotional suffering, fear, and anger among local communities un­ healing justice equally exposed to environmental harms (see for example Sultana, 2011; Auyero & Swistun, 2009; González-Hidalgo & Zografos, 2017). The Recent work in critical geography (Pulido & De Lara, 2018; Ranga­ literature has also pointed out how engagement with nature and nathan & Bratman, 2021) has put forward an “abolitionist climate jus­ more-than human entities can be a source of relief in such contexts tice” that centres historical racism, intersecting drivers of trauma (Dallman et al., 2013; Singh, 2013). Intense emotions, however, can also beyond those associated with climate, and an ethics of care and healing result in individual and collective burnout and internal conflicts among for those most at risk by climate change. In other words, this literature environmental movements (Gravante & Poma, 2016). seeks to connect climate harm with healing from historical trauma. Some emotional political ecologists have explicitly discussed the Abolitionist theories criticise liberal approaches that rely on juridical possibilities of healing in the context of historic and present environ­ and distributive justice models and link environmental justice to the mental violence. Middleton (2010), for instance, discusses how the Black radical tradition to address forms of freedom that are not depen­ intergenerational trauma of colonisation shows that “historical grief dent on recognition by the liberal state (Pulido & De Lara, 2018). They remains unresolved, and children experience similar trauma responses imagine new ways of finding accountability on behalf of survivors of as their parents, even though they did not directly experience the trauma violence, building a society where it is possible to address harm without their parents did” (p. 9). Middleton discusses how Indigenous commu­ relying on structural forms of oppression (racism, sexism, classism, nities’ mobilisation in order to defend their own land governance from ableism, etc) or the violent systems that sustain them (i.e. the prison extractivism and land grabbing, was both evidence of the impacts of industrial complex). In this sense, abolition is a “structural analysis of colonial legacies as well as a source of healing from them. Other authors oppression, a practical organising strategy, and a political vision of a have analysed the ways and methodologies in which environmental restructured society in a world where we have everything we need: food, activists engage with the search for spaces of emotional expression in shelter, education, health, art, beauty, clean water and more things that their movements, such as a collective engagement with performance are foundational to our personal and community safety” (Kaba, 2021: 2). (Brown & Pickerill, 2009); and how Indigenous, political-spiritual rit­ Transformative and healing justice are two frameworks closely linked to uals facilitate the expression of collective emotions of grief and anger abolition since both are concerned with addressing and finding (González-Hidalgo & Zografos, 2017). These papers show how the col­ accountability for communities that do not rely on the state and that lective expression of emotions helps activists or land defenders to place collective healing at the centre. maintain everyday environmental and land struggles, against disci­ Transformative justice aims at transforming the social conditions plining technologies of the State and private capital in their territories. that allowed the harm to occur (Generation Five, 2017).4 It works to Following the work of González-Hidalgo and Zografos (2020), who actively resist the state’s criminal injustice system and interventions that highlight five dimensions in the emotional processes in which in­ perpetuate violence and oppression (Mingus, 2015). Transformative dividuals and collectives build environmental justice, healing in climate justice departs from the idea that what happens in interpersonal and environmental injustice can be considered as a multidimensional processes: 1) the psychological dimension refers to the concrete ways and methodologies in which individuals and communities seek to handle the 3 See https://www.yesmagazine.org/orphan/2017/02/04/to-save-the-water- impacts of climate trauma in their minds, bodies and spirits; 2) the we-must-break-the-cycle-of-colonial-trauma, last access May 2021. more-than-human refers to the nurturing role of daily affective engage­ 4 Transformative justice has been used in contexts of child sexual abuse (see ments with non-human natures as key for healing; 3) the collective refers http://www.generationfive.org), sexual assault (https://www.phillystandsup. to the shared and relational spaces for healing environmental injustice org), women of colour who survive sexual or domestic violence (see https://i by means of collective action; 4) the geographical refers to how emotional ncite-national.org/). Last access May 2021. 3 M. González-Hidalgo et al. Political Geography 98 (2022) 102721 relationships is mirrored and reinforced by the larger systems of 2020), as our lived experiences associated with our emotional attach­ oppression and that by focusing on this interplay, the conditions that led ments to place. In practice, working to understand our bodies-territories to the interpersonal harm and violence can be transformed (Kaba, implies participatory methodologies such as body mapping to connect 2021). Therefore, this framework can only be applied in relation to the what happens in the territories we inhabit with what we perceive in our specific context in which it is being practiced, including and responding bodies and emotions, and vice versa. Such methodologies, in the context to the specific experiences of the community (Generation Five, 2017; of environmental injustice, have shown how women’s bodies (some­ Kaba, 2021). Transformative justice seeks accountability from in­ times silently) endure the emotional and embodied impacts caused by dividuals who cause harm, while engaging community members in the lack of or the contamination of water, as well as by state-, commu­ creating the conditions that invite and demand real accountability and nity-, and gender-based violence. In practice, cuerpo-territorio thus im­ change (Generation Five, 2017). According to Kaba (2021), the rela­ plies a “feminist means to diagnose territorial conflicts and to initiate tionship between accountability processes and healing is not straight­ healing of bodies and territories” (Zaragocin & Caretta, 2020: 6). The forward, as accountability processes are not intended for healing; rather, aim of such collective mapping is, on the one hand, to create a safe they tackle and process harm and emotions associated with it, such as environment for participants to recognise, share, and listen to and fear, anger and vengeance, though healing can at times happen in their support each other’s suffering as well as their own sources of healing and wake. well-being, beyond Western health frameworks. It also helps to Inspired by transformative justice, healing justice was coined in 2007 denounce such impacts to organise women and those who usually do not in the US and has been expanded in the past decade by other Black, count, in the defence of their territories. As Lorena Cabnal notes, these Brown, and Indigenous queer, trans, and disabled social movements are personal-political practices, which “prompt us to recover time for the (Peck, 2020). Healing justice is both a framework and a set of practices body to vindicate joy and – without losing indignation and in the middle that entail reviving ancestral healing practices and building new ones,5 of the complex world – celebrate life, resistance, and plural wisdom, as emphasising how embodied, contemplative and interpersonal healing well as being alive and embodied” (Cabnal, 2017: 103, own translation). work can transform historical trauma, systemic violence, and internal­ Our reading of these three frameworks inspire us to discuss how ised oppression (Peck, 2020). It emerged as a reaction to the co-optation healing needs to be considered as a political process in the search for and appropriation of traditional healing practices by the white middle environmental and climate justice. The emphasis of these frameworks in class which tend to disregard the emotional privileges and impacts the several dimensions related to healing, and its material/structural associated to colonialism, racism and ableism. It is also a response to and embodied origins and manifestations provides us with a lens to social movements that fail to consider healing as a serious issue and a explore how three community-based experiences that we have met or political need (Piepzna-Samarasinha, 2016). In this view, healing does participated in Mexico, Colombia and Spain operationalize emotional not draw on ableist notions of wellbeing that see individuals falling on a healing in relation to environmental and climate justice. binary of being sick or healthy, where a cure is always seen as the pri­ mary goal (Piepzna-Samarasinha, 2016). Rather, it is invested in culti­ 3. Methods and positionality vating relationships with the emotional and psychological selves that foster joy, tenderness, and liberation (Peck, 2020). This paper is the result of our shared reading, reflections, and dis­ cussions around a topic that challenges us as researchers and members 2.3. Healing as an embodied process: communitarian feminisms or companions of social-environmental movements. It was constituted by an open-ended process of continuous learning, which started around Communitarian feminism is a school of thought, practice, and ten years ago when our shared interests around environmental justice movement based on the ancestral principles of Indigenous communities brought us together. While each of us have been involved in different from Latin America. It recognises that historically pre-colonial patriar­ research projects, contexts, and institutions, through our informal talks chy and present-day Western patriarchy interlocked in such a way that we soon realised how environmental justice and political ecology studies Indigenous voices are often not heard and are now struggling to finally tend to under-explore the role of emotions in conflicts and mobilisations, emerge. This perspective has been key in Latin American political while, in our interactions with members of local communities and social ecology (and beyond) to show how the bodies of impoverished women – movements, we perceived how these emotions have a central role. For among others – are usually considered as spaces of dispossession in example, in these forums we have frequently listened to expressions extractivist contexts, and how feminist, territorial activism seeks to such as “heal our suffering”, “holding our pain”, “processing our anger”. transform such relations through daily, political activities where life We also learned how movements and communities involved in envi­ occupies a central place (Ulloa, 2018). ronmental and climate justice struggles are increasingly engaging in One of the key concepts and practices generated by communitarian emotional work. However, these significant experiences are often feminists is cuerpo-territorio. Cuerpo-territorio (in English, body-territory) neglected in academic fora. We see this paper as a way to share what we is a key concept and healing practice with a long tradition, especially in have learned about emotional work while being part of or supporting Indigenous and feminist groups engaged in territorial defence in Latin caring collectives. America and the Caribbean (Cabnal, 2017; Cruz-Hernández, 2016; Regarding our positionality as researchers, we are all young adults, Zaragocin & Caretta, 2020). The central idea of cuerpo-territorio is based cis white women, middle class, Mediterranean researchers affiliated on feminist understandings of the inseparable and co-dependent re­ with European universities or organisations that pay our salaries, that is, lationships of (human) bodies and territory, especially relevant in with relatively good economic conditions – though in precarity given the extractivist contexts where women’s groups would claim that “my body fixed-term nature of our contracts. This is a highly privileged position in is my territory” or that “neither women nor land are territories to be contrast with some of the areas where we have done research, not only conquered” as a way to show their resistance (Cruz-Hernández, 2016). in structural terms, but also because we can reflect, discuss, and write Body-territory implies an Indigenous and decolonised perspective to about the emotional toll of environmental injustice without usually better understand “embodiment” (see review by Zaragocin & Caretta, experiencing the same devastating emotional impacts in our daily lives. 5 Some of these practices used in the US Social Forum Healing Justice Prac­ tice Space ranges from reiki, to acupressure, acupuncture and sound and so­ matic therapy (see https://incite-national.org/2010/08/05/reflections-from-d etroit-transforming-wellness-wholeness/, last access May 2021). 4 M. González-Hidalgo et al. Political Geography 98 (2022) 102721 While our aim is to use this privilege to reflect upon what it means to deforestation, and tourism (Otros Mundos Chiapas, 2015).6 Many heal environmental injustice, it is also important to notice that it is not communities mobilised against these projects, seeking to gain sover­ because of our structural privileges that we can reflect upon emotional eignty over the collective management of their common resources. issues: as we have learnt with local communities, grassroots and However, resisting extraction takes a big toll; local leaders and activists movements, looking for ways of emotional healing is not the result of have been threatened, murdered, or have had their rights violated privilege, but a key strategy for individual and collective survival (see (FRAYBA, 2005). Max-Neef et al., 1992). A small collective, Edupaz (Education for Peace) was first created in It is important for us to acknowledge our partial perspective (Har­ 1998 in Comitán de Dominguez, initially to support migrant commu­ ding, 2004), and it is therefore not our aim to appropriate these litera­ nities escaping the armed conflict in Guatemala. Edupaz aimed to tures and experiences. On the contrary, our aim is to open new questions enhance communities’ self-determination and resistance by combining and spaces for discussion around healing across disciplines, recognising liberation theology and liberation psychology.7 One of the founding its political potential to transform a narrow understanding of environ­ members of Edupaz, trained as a Gestalt therapist,8 co-organised mental and climate justice. It is also our aim to honour and respect the intensive workshops entitled “SAT Maya-Healing the heart” from 2004 knowledge and experience of such collectives, and we see this paper as a to 2014, with a total of over 300 participants. They were inspired by small step toward learning about such experiences on personal, aca­ Claudio Naranjo’s “Seekers of Truth” (SAT) program and mainly demic, and political levels. Therefore, we do not aim to develop an involved peasant and Indigenous leaders: Zapatistas, individuals linked in-depth and critical analysis of each case, but to highlight the political to peasant organisations such as the Organización Campesina Emiliano significance of three community-based experiences of healing promoted Zapata (OCEZ) and Indigenous community members associated with the by local activists in very diverse contexts: in Indigenous and peasant Autochthonous/Liberation Church. The workshops aimed to promote territories in southern Mexico, rural Colombia, and urban Madrid, self-knowledge of the attendees in physical, emotional and mental terms Spain. This allows us to discuss the political role of healing practices as through the use of various tools inspired by Gestalt therapy, such as part of environmental and climate injustice processes and struggles. body movement and music, personality analysis (via enneagram), In the vignettes, we briefly present key aspects of each context, as mutual therapies, and family constellations (Naranjo, 2013; Keck, well as key modalities through which healing is framed and pursued by 2015), in combination with Mayan healing ceremonies. According to members of these communities and grassroots movements. We have a one of the founding members of Edupaz: “The aim of these interventions long history of collaboration or participation in the experiences pre­ is to face the incoherencies of organisations, especially those related to sented in the first and third vignettes, and more details can be found in the difficulties of community representatives to take care of themselves our own publications (see González-Hidalgo, 2017 and Piñeiro, 2019; and their families, to hear and attend community demands … related to Piñeiro et al., 2021, respectevely) as well as in publications by research health issues and in relation to uneven gender relationships’’ so that allies (see Altekio, 2019 for Vignette 3). The second vignette, based on they can “see our [their] own heart and realise how we alone are the work by Rios Vivos/SETAA, is based on a preliminary interview with enslaving ourselves … and see that the villain is not only outside, but the facilitator of the workshops and member of the movement. We have also inside, in the way they treat their wives, sons and daughters, in the written these vignettes with the permission and collaboration of key way they choose their leaders” (González-Hidalgo, 2017: 58). For Edu­ informants of those collectives. paz, developing these workshops also implied democratising access to psychotherapy, beyond psychiatric or class categories. 4. Healing experiences in Mexico, Colombia and Spain For most attendees, the workshops constituted the first opportunity to collectively reflect upon their own individual and community life 4.1. Vignette 1: “healing the heart” of activist Chiapas, Mexico: the stories. Through a combination of emotional and bodily individual and therapeutic work of Edupaz collective exercises, the workshops facilitated the expression of silenced individualised traumas, such as those associated with family and gender The uprising of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) in violence within the community; they also facilitated reflexivity and in­ 1994 brought to international attention the abuses that rural, peasant, sights around collective disappointments and conflicts regarding col­ and especially Indigenous communities – Tojolabal (in the Border Re­ lective action, encouraging individual and collective reflection on gion, near Guatemala) and Tzotzil and Tzeltal (in the highlands) – had leadership roles. As some participants reported to us, these workshops historically faced in Chiapas. Civil human rights organisations reported helped some of them in the long term to be able to better communicate that in the period of 1995–2000, violent state and paramilitary counter- in collective meetings, to better handle their anger and fear, or to better insurgence responses to the uprising caused more than 150 deaths and understand others when collective actions did not result in the way that displaced nearly 10,000 people in Chiapas (FRAYBA, 2005). The con­ they expected. However, the workshops did not engage explicitly with sequences of this conflict were also manifested in psychosocial terms: the analysis of how the structural, political context impacted the communities reported fear, worry, fatigue, anger, sadness, discourage­ everyday life of participants (see González-Hidalgo, 2017). Healing the ment, and increased internal confrontations (Pérez-Sales et al., 2002). emotional impacts associated with environmental injustice, in this case, Today 77% of the population in Chiapas lives in poverty or extreme meant having the opportunity to stop and reflect upon one’s own role in poverty (SEDESOL, 2021). Besides challenges to their livelihood, community and household spaces and how this was informed by diverse peasant and Indigenous communities in Chiapas also face threats to their life experiences, as well as listening to those of others – generating a territorial sovereignty due to several environmental conflicts from more emphatic sense of a collective we (see Fig. 1). mining, hydroelectric projects, privatisation of land and water, 6 See also https://ejatlas.org/country/mexico, last access May 2021. 7 Liberation theology is a Christian theological curriculum born in Latin America in the 1960s which emphasises that Gospel requires the preferential option for the poor. Liberation psychology defends that psychological knowl­ edge must be put at the service of those who have less. 8 Gestalt Therapy is a current of humanistic psychology, which places emphasis on gaining awareness of the present moment and context and on taking responsibility (understood as capacity to respond, rather than blame) for own interactions with the world. 5 M. González-Hidalgo et al. Political Geography 98 (2022) 102721 the workshops, “People affected by dams feel uprooted and discon­ nected from their territories, lose the capacity of self-care while, at the same time, feelings of envy, anxiety, fear and rage undermine coexis­ tence”. Ríos Vivos and Comunidades SETAA also witness how forced displacements lead to people losing their livelihoods, desire to live, and their collective memories rooted in the territory. This disconnection is understood by Ríos Vivos and Comunidades SETAA as the cause of body illnesses and strongly affects the emotional and mental sphere as well. The second axis was centred on health autonomy and emotional awareness as a way to heal oneself and reconnect with the community and the territory. In the words of the main creator of the workshops, trained as a holistic therapist: “What we do to our waters and other more-than-human living creatures reflects what we do to ourselves and our people. How can we reclaim justice from the state or government, if we don’t act with justice with ourselves, with our own community and family, with our own territory? We have to be aware of our inner wounds as a first step toward healing them”. According to their Fig. 1. Group work in Huixtán, Chiapas, Mexico. Credits: Edupaz. Distributed approach, community and family bonds need to be healed together with with permission. the psychological and emotional dimensions of individual members. Only then can mutual trust and intergenerational cooperation, which are 4.2. Vignette 2: emotions and self-care as transformative forces: the foundational preconditions for rebuilding and regenerating the territory construction of autonomy and healing the territory in anti-dam struggles, (‘retejer nuestro territorio’), be regained. Colombia The workshops were structured around three main aspects of human harmony: the prevention of illness, treatment of symptoms, and support Environmental and climate justice movements in Colombia seek for restoring health. To do so, the workshops included simple exercises justice for affected communities by the dramatic advancement of that alleviate common bodily symptoms such as headache or stiffness extractive projects (Pérez-Rincón et al., 2018), increasing climate when these do not require specialised medical attention. The aim of such injustice due to both fossil fuel extraction (see Cardoso, 2015) and exercises was to foster individual and collective autonomy and re­ so-called renewables (see Duarte-Abadía, Boelens, & Roa-Avendaño, sponsibility to listen to him/herself and act over physical symptoms 2015), and extreme climate events in a backdrop of violence caused by without conferring decision-making power over one’s health to third internal armed conflict.9 parties. Meditation practises were also adopted as a tool for creating the The Movimiento Ríos Vivos en Defensa de los Territorios y Afectados por silence necessary for listening to oneself and connecting with one’s Represas (in English, Living Rivers Movement in Defence of Territories imagination and deep self. The participants were invited to reconnect and Affected by Dams, hereafter, Ríos Vivos) has worked since 2006 as a body, mind, emotions, and spirit to heal the bonds with each other and nationwide movement to oppose mega dams and other extractive pro­ with the space they inhabit (see Fig. 2). jects and to promote transition to renewable or alternative energy. The The workshops also invited reflexive dialogues between participants Comunidades Sembradores de Territorios, Agua y Autonomía (in English, as exercises to explore the way one thinks, acts, and reacts in life and Communities Sowing Territories, Water and Autonomy, hereafter, gain awareness of the emotions that inform such thinking and actions. Comunidades SETAA) started their work in 2007 analysing the territo­ Such exercises helped participants to understand how an emotion of fear rial impacts of the Hidroituango project in the Río Cauca canyon. or anger can backfire at some point while a gentle attitude of solidarity Comunidades SETAA are part of Ríos Vivos and their work focuses on could benefit both parties. In this context, healing climate injustice starts autonomy as a way to create dignified conditions for remaining in the with being aware of one’s emotions, and consciously transforming and potentially affected territories. In their perspective, autonomy is directing them towards a constructive attitude for the community. Ac­ enhanced by means of the alternative provision and management of, cording to the trainer, “one of the biggest achievements was to see long- among others, food, water, energy, and health services, building alter­ standing feelings of envy and revenge within families being healed and native paths of Buen Vivir (Chuji et al., 2018). The challenges, however, are many, including impoverished economies, internal armed conflict, displacement, social disruption, and increasing rates of sexual abuses due to extractive industries or climate injustice. Members of Ríos Vivos and Comunidades SETAA have been holding workshops on self-care and self-healing since 2018 called “Autocuidado y Bienestar para la Vida Digna y la Permanencia en los Territorios” (Self-Care and Wellbeing for a Dignified Life and for Remaining in our Territories, own translation) in peasant, afro-descendent, fishing, and other riverine communities affected or displaced by dams. The workshops have been taking place in the provinces and regions (departamentos and subregiones) where the movement operates, such as Bajo Sinu (affected by the Urrá 1 dam), Huila (Quimbo dam), Cauca (La Salvajina dam), Antioquia (Hidroituango dam) and Santander (Hidrosogamoso dam). The work­ shops revolved around two main axes. First, the connection between the causes of climate and environmental injustices and the disconnection from people’s territory and autonomy. In the words of one organiser of Fig. 2. Workshop in Antioquia, Colombia, facilitated by Ríos Vivos. Credits: 9 See also https://ejatlas.org/country/colombia, last access May 2021. Diana Marcela Giraldo Sierra. Distributed with permission. 6 M. González-Hidalgo et al. Political Geography 98 (2022) 102721 thus probably lots of violence being avoided”. seeing climate change as something personal and relational and there­ fore better understanding, experiencing relief about and/or utility for feelings such as anger, loneliness, sadness, pain, iv) connecting with 4.3. Vignette 3: meaningful conversations about climate change in nature as a force and source of inspiration during these conversations Madrid: connecting with our emotions and processing them (see Piñeiro, 2019; Piñeiro et al., 2021). In these facilitation experiences, the forum started with the sharing As a capital and a big city in the Global North, Madrid is a large of different experiences that addressed the question (whereby at least 3 consumer of materials and resources from Spain and beyond. For or 4 people start showing diversity of viewpoints, backgrounds, emo­ example, the total energy consumption by the municipality of Madrid tions, etc.). This led to a dialogue in which more people could share was 9.6 million tonnes of oil equivalent, while the energy production in experiences, connect with emotions on the spot, and unravel what these the region amounted to 179,000 tonnes of oil equivalent (Comunidad de emotions reveal about personal and collective relations to climate Madrid, 2016). The difference, obviously, comes from countries that are change and climate (in)justice. Participants were invited to express their oil producers, generating environmental inequalities and conflicts in inner diversity, that is, to check in on themselves if they realised that and beyond the territorial space of Madrid. Recently, the city council has they are experiencing several emotions and needs at the same time (for embarked on a plan for the city to become carbon neutral by 2050. example hope, anger, and fear when thinking about climate change). By However, this plan will be difficult to achieve given present inequalities. sharing these feelings, a meaningful conversation about the embodied According to a recent study, Madrid is the European city with the most impacts of the climate crisis arose. For example, some racialised par­ deaths caused by nitrogen dioxide10. Moreover, the city is experiencing ticipants expressed their frustration (among other emotions like sadness, the impacts of climate change across economic inequalities: regarding anger, surprise, or shock) about how “intense consumerism in Madrid heat waves, the south and centre districts are highly vulnerable, due to does not let people realise and connect with the real and everyday im­ high percentage of dwellings with 20 m2 or less per inhabitant, higher plications that the climate crisis has had and continues to have for rates of residents on a low income or without employment, among other migrated peoples”. One white male participant expressed his “help­ indicators (see Tapia et al., 2015). lessness and intense anger seeing how governments and private capital Altekio, a social cooperative working on ecosocial transformation ignored the climate crisis”. Throughout the dialogue, participants and since 2008, together with climate activists engaged in facilitation ac­ facilitators gained awareness about power dynamics in the moment tivities, noticed there was a lack of spaces where emotions in relation to while interacting. These conversations were also a way to address climate change could be expressed. However, burnout, sadness, structures of disempowerment (racism, classism, etc.) and connect with depression, anger, agony, and fear were very present in activist circles. injustice as well as possibilities of radical transformation through spe­ The acknowledgment of these feelings led to the pilot project “Process cific actions. This was supported by practices of facilitation, such as Work for the Environmental or Sociological Crisis in Public, Collective slowing down the conversation, framing power dynamics, encouraging or Group Settings”, which consisted in its first stage of five open forums everyone to speak, noticing body postures, emotions and naming them, about climate change. The open forum is a methodology based on group etc (see Fig. 3). dialogue that aims to hear all voices and experiences in relation to a In several OPs, it was often mentioned that those who cause less topic as a way to work through power dynamics, emotions, and di­ emissions are also suffering faster and greater consequences of those versities (that is, to “process” them, see Mindell, 2002).11 emissions – a dynamic also taking place at the scale of the city of Madrid. During 2017 and 2018, five Open Forums (OPs) were organised Conversations led to taking responsibility/accountability about this fact under the umbrella of welcoming questions such as “How do we live and to relate as humans with pain and suffering and also to acknowledge with climate change?” (OP1), “How do we collaborate in the scenario of so much power and love in the stories shared. In this context, healing the climate change in cities to make them more sustainable?” (OP2), “How emotional consequences of climate injustice implied first by collectively does climate change affect (me)?” (OP3), “How are we acting or not, or dealing with emotions and embodied experiences in relation to climate how would we like to face the socio-ecological crisis?” (OP4), “How do change, and then by facing conflicts that arise in the conversation, we relate to climate change and how does this affect our relations with acknowledging privileges and power dynamics, taking responsibility for ourselves and others?” (OP5). While invitations were open for anyone them, feeling empathy among participants and explicitly mentioning the interested in exploring environmental topics, attendees or participants unequal structural dynamics of climate change. As the OPs were only in these forums were mostly activists, scientists, entrepreneurs, social temporary communities and short sessions, there was a limited impact workers, public workers, policymakers, migrants and/or refugees, fa­ on the possibilities of transformation, especially regarding the follow-up cilitators and citizens. Between 20 and more than 50 people attended of learning, support and related actions. In addition, some dimensions each OP, with a duration of around 2 h each. In contrast to the two other vignettes, OPs create a temporal community among people who may not know each other beforehand, although unexpected connections can take place through the workshop. Participants of the workshops have re­ ported that the OPs were learning experiences in terms of: i) raising awareness about power dynamics embedded in climate change, such as colonialism, racism and classism and taking personal responsibility for its implications in the past, the present and the future; ii) deepening understanding of own and diverse participants’ experiences and emo­ tions created by conflicting views when facing climate change; iii) 10 See https://isglobalranking.org/city/madrid-metropolitan-area/, last ac­ cess May 2021. 11 As part of this project, Altekio also worked with a specific activist group, using a similar methodology, called “group process”: a process-oriented facili­ tation structure designed to draw on the diversity in groups, which helps with seeing the power dynamics in groups beyond only one voice. It is useful for working with complex situations like long-term conflicts and enables the Fig. 3. A moment at the Open Forum 2, part of Sustainable Development Goals development of fluidity between different roles (see Emslie, 2014). Lab, Madrid, Spain. Source: Altekio. Distributed with permission. 7 M. González-Hidalgo et al. Political Geography 98 (2022) 102721 were not addressed directly, such as emotional attachment to place. opportunities for individuals and movements to express their anger and suffering, while seeking relational ways to handle them. 5. Discussion The three vignettes also show how healing the emotional impacts of environmental and climate injustice entails focusing on how interper­ In the previous section, we presented short vignettes of healing ex­ sonal and community relationships are connected and mirror structural periences with a diversity of methodologies, contexts (urban, rural, causes of injustice. These experiences sought to transform the conditions Global North and South), and actors (Indigenous community members, that allows harm to occur in communities in a way that builds autonomy peasants, urban activists, neighbours), who struggle in different ways in and sovereignty. Edupaz sought to deal with the individual and collec­ face of the climate crisis. All these experiences show ways in which tive traumas associated with structural violence in the context of social healing is seen as a key aspect to consider when dealing with environ­ mobilisation, trying to eradicate the dissemination of structural violence mental and climate injustice. However, they also present diverse per­ towards the everyday life of individuals (especially women and chil­ spectives on healing as a political process. Edupaz seeks to facilitate the dren), families, and collectives. Rios Vivos’ search for autonomy in healing of individuals and communities in the context of a historical addressing body pain and suffering can be seen as a step towards prac­ territorial conflict by an eclectic array of practices from spiritual and tices of self-care without depending on exterior structures and in­ psychological traditions using Gestalt therapy; Ríos Víos focuses on stitutions. And, in Altekio’s facilitation processes, participants engaged emotional work and holistic body health perspectives for improving and discussed how unequal roles, impacts, and responsibilities in the individual health as well as healing local relations among communities climate crisis are structured by systems of power. Even with their limi­ affected by the construction of dams; and Altekio promotes facilitation tations and differences among them, all three experiences addressed processes as a healing strategy in order to deal with one’s own and emotional healing as political work: helping activists to map the others’ intense – and sometimes opposed or silenced – (emotional) views emotional impacts of land, environmental and climate injustice in their on the climate crisis. We will now discuss this diversity through the own lives, communities and territories; while also understanding how concepts of multidimensionality, structurality, and embodiment to injustice is reproduced through power imbalances in their everyday life. inquire how healing can be identified in contexts of environmental and Although workshops and discussions per se cannot eradicate the mate­ climate injustice. We will then argue how by further considering rial and structural roots of everyday environmental injustice in Mexico, emotional healing as part of environmental and climate justice pro­ Colombia and Spain, they planted a seed for political transformation by cesses, researchers, activists, and practitioners could expand on the the creation of collective conditions to listen and manage the anger, conceptualisation of the spatial and temporal scales of climate justice. pain, helplessness and abuses associated to land, environmental and We suggest these are key aspects to be further explored by environ­ climate injustice, which tend to be silenced or ignored. Collective spaces mental and climate justice scholars, and specifically those interested in of emotional healing in environmental and climate struggles, therefore, transformative environmental justice, so that emotional processes are provide opportunities for communities to gain awareness, stay in the recognised as a foundational condition for radical transformations in the territory and collectively discuss on alternatives and transformations, search of environmental and climate justice. And finally, the vignettes also help to devise ways in which healing The three vignettes show how the generation of spaces where there is climate justice can be envisioned as an embodied process: all organisa­ room for expressing emotions opens up opportunities for healing across tions initiated their healing proposals, starting first from a close explo­ several dimensions, showing how environmental and climate justice can ration of their bodies, so that they could detect their pain and suffering also be defined as healing in multidimensional, psychosocial/more- and search for emotional causes of it. From the vignettes, Ríos Vivos than-human/social/geographical/political terms (González-Hidalgo & focused more clearly on this aspect, emphasising emotional work and Zografos, 2020). Edupaz’s therapeutic exercises and Ríos Vivos’ medi­ holistic body health perspectives for improving individual health as well tation and self-care practices show the possibilities of healing environ­ as healing local relations among communities affected by the con­ mental injustice in a psychosocial dimension, when individuals and struction of dams. The three vignettes show how climate and environ­ communities seek ways to identify their own emotions and take mental justice also has a bodily scale, in which human bodies seek response-ability for them (understood as the ‘capacity to respond’, i.e. to physical and emotional healing via different methodologies (as pointed individually and collectively define what we can and want to do with out by feminist and decolonial scholars such as Zaragocin & Caretta, what is happening); and heal their individual and collective, present and 2020); they also show how emotional healing bodies may help to inter-generational pain and suffering. The efforts of Ríos Vívos to help transform the human-nature relationships in those territories. individuals and communities to affectively reconnect with their territory Considering emotional healing of environmental injustice as a highlights the more-than-human dimension in healing environmental multidimensional, structural and embodied process opens up the dis­ injustice. Edupaz, Ríos Vivos, and Altekio’s work showed the collective cussion about the scale of climate and environmental justice. The spatial dimension of healing, by means of healing practices that help to build scale of environmental struggles for climate justice goes beyond com­ more solid and resilient collective strategies, alternatives, and forms of munities and their territories and permeates the intimate spheres of autonomy. The forums led by Altekio, for example, are a good example human bodies, minds, emotions, and spirits. As pointed out by Svarstad of a creation of a collective environment (even if temporal) that could and Benjaminsen (2020) and as the three vignettes show, the scale of build and deal with one’s and others’ intense, and sometimes opposed or environmental justice is also inter-personal – i.e., communities are not silenced (emotional), views on the climate crisis. The geographical homogeneous groups void of internal power relations – and therefore dimension of healing was manifest in the work of Ríos Vivos, since their living in environmental and climate injustice affects the relations be­ workshops aimed to help activists to feel better and remain in the ter­ tween members of organisations and movements. As these authors say, ritory, therefore re-generating cultural and territorial caring livelihoods. And finally, all experiences show the intimate connection between the personal and the political: while the healing practices of Edupaz, Ríos Vivos and Altekio sought to increase the well-being of individuals and communities, intense emotions around climate change were not “treated” to make them disappear or maximise individual happiness (Ahmed, 2010). On the contrary, to explore them as a way to collectively realise, understand, and decide what to do with them. That is, pursuing the emotional healing of environmental and climate injustice as a col­ lective, political process (and not as an individualised strategy) provided 8 M. González-Hidalgo et al. Political Geography 98 (2022) 102721 this needs to be further explored in environmental justice literature in violence shape our lives as a way to understand how deeply enmeshed order to avoid idealistic views on movements and communities; we are in the very systems that we’re organising to transform, then I feel engaging with the ambivalent role of emotions in climate struggles can like it’s a movement that will allow us to move a step toward trans­ help in that sense (González-Hidalgo, 2020). The vignettes uncover formation and more justice” (Kaba, 2021: 179). By further engaging silenced dynamics among/in mobilised communities such as gendered with the transformative potential of emotions and affect in environ­ violence and violence against children (Edupaz’s vignette), revenge mental movements, scholars and activists interested in transformative between families (Ríos Vivos vignette), and racial prejudices (Altekio’s environmental justice could further explore and help to facilitate the vignette). The healing experiences show how having the space to express ambivalent role of emotions for those mobilised in territorial and such emotions in safer12 collective environments may open up oppor­ climate struggles (González-Hidalgo, 2020). This could also lead to tunities for communities to analyse and act upon internal power re­ further analysis and discussion about how healing experiences can be lations and conflicts. Altekio’s vignette also demonstrates how relevant co-opted by States and private sector actors in top-down initiatives the extended scale is nowadays when the participants of healing prac­ which depict emotional healing as fluffy and unconnected to structural, tises are not direct victims of one specific destructive industry but historical, land and resource struggles. confront the broader consequences of cumulative carbon emissions of Finally, we argue that by taking seriously into account the needs and industrial society: even when feeling privileged, they feel emotionally attempts of healing by movements, communities, or citizens, we can impacted. More recently, we have seen these examples in the voices of better understand and nuance the emotional-political implications of young students in Europe who might not be suffering directly by the climate justice struggles, further conceptualising environmental and melting of the ice or by violent tornadoes but feel they are part of a climate struggles as processes, as we explain below. As is evident, the suffering humanity and demand justice for all. And finally, the vignettes emotional practices we narrated did not imply an immediate, visible and also point to the relevance of the temporal scale when seeking ways for big transformation of power relations in their contexts; their contribu­ healing climate injustice, where intergenerational traumas in the past tions are subtler, slower and difficult to track, and in some cases also (colonial legacies in Mexico, conflict and extractivism in Colombia, class intimate (regarding internal functioning of families and communities). inequalities and colonial dynamics in Madrid) intersect with present, However, they represent a real effort from the side of collectives to active conflicts as well as in the ways local communities dream and wish connect the personal and the political in climate and environmental to imagine their futures (e.g. voices of youth and future generations in injustices, and to democratise and make accessible the right to be the open forums). emotionally healed in contexts of structural and historical injustice. The We argue that this emphasis on healing as a multidimensional, multi- transformational power of these exercises in the present and in the scalar and multi-temporal political process in environmental and future is therefore difficult to track and predict. As Arnold Mindell says climate justice struggles also helps us to nuance conceptualisations (one of the key figures of process work, a framework that inspired open around environmental and climate justice. Our work is an invitation to forums and the emotional work by Altekio): “Process is like a special climate and environmental justice researchers and specifically to those train whose destination cannot always be predicted. The observer fol­ interested in transformative environmental justice (Scheidel et al., 2018; lows the signals in his (sic) real life or in a fantasy trip as they reveal life Temper et al., 2018), to expand the scope of “transformations”. to him (sic)” (Mindell, 1985: 11). This perspective on process implies the Although this perspective offers insights into how conflicts can lead to a consideration of non-linear movements and contradictions, suggesting more just political configuration of the society, it hasn’t explored environmental justice is a process, not something static nor in-depth the emotional dimension of socio-ecological or radical trans­ straight-forward. Considering emotional healing as a process also im­ formations. Through the work done by the communities and movements plies accepting that, given the long history of colonisation, discrimina­ we engaged with, we hoped to show inspiring examples on how tion, dispossession and trauma associated to environmental and climate engaging in explorative, emotional, healing processes may be as key for processes, some wounds are hard to be healed, or never will be healed, the survival of the collective project as are the direct struggles facing the as pointed out by transformative healing practitioners. material, structural and distributive aspects of justice. As Blanco-Wells recently put it (2021:2): “the scenarios of severe socio-environmental 6. Conclusions crises caused by extractive industries and other destructive processes may be conducive to the emergence of new socio-material arrangements In this paper, we sought to address the gap in climate and environ­ and affective dispositions that, through practices of resistance, remedi­ mental justice scholarship, which has so far tended to under-explore the ation, and mutual care engender reparatory processes and/or initiatives needs, knowledges, and experiences of emotional healing of those of transformation of damaged ecologies and communities”. True climate embodying the unequal impacts of the current environmental and justice implies then not only a payback of the climate debt and a major climate crisis. By engaging with literatures of activist-researchers overhaul of political power structures, but also reparations for loss and engaged with feminist, Indigenous and Black communities, and our damage (Turhan, 2021). In that sense, (transformative) environmental own experiences as engaged researchers in three different contexts in justice could be inspired by further engaging with transformative and Mexico, Colombia and Spain, we have sought to contribute toward a healing justice practices that focus on addressing violence inside com­ discussion on the political and transformative role of healing processes munities as a result of having continuously experienced oppression – for climate and environmental injustice. The experiences we briefly complementing the focus on the external dynamics between extractive document help us to elaborate emotional healing associated to envi­ industries and communities. In the words of the community organiser ronmental injustice as a personal-political process that is multidimen­ Mariame Kaba: “if we could see the multiple ways that various forms of sional, non-linear, multi-scalar and complex. Our paper not only illustrates that we need more and more system­ atic analysis of emotional and psychosocial impacts associated with 12 climate change and environmental conflict, but also that we require Safer, but not totally safe: as many trans-queer and non-white feminists further evidence of – and learning from – the processes of emotional argue, these spaces may never be absolutely safe for everyone due to different restoration that communities exposed to climate change and environ­ lived and intersected experiences (Silvestrini, 2020). We therefore also recog­ nise that there is also the risk for re-traumatisation and increased oppressive mental conflict seek and develop. Environmental justice and political dynamics in healing practices. These risks need to be considered when facili­ ecology literatures – and practices – need to further engage, recognise tating such spaces, in order to make sure that while engaging into healing and learn from the healing practices, experiences and languages that practices, participants remember to be mindful of their interaction with others communities and movements are developing – not as a conceptual ex­ and themselves. ercise, but as a way to survive themselves, while also contributing to 9 M. González-Hidalgo et al. Political Geography 98 (2022) 102721 humanity’s (and more-than-human) survival. In this paper we have only Auyero, J., & Swistun, D. A. (2009). Flammable: Environmental suffering in an Argentine shantytown. Oxford University Press. briefly discussed three of them. Some of these practices are increasingly Blanco-Wells, G. (2021). Ecologies of repair: A post-human approach to other-than- being implemented in institutional and academic-activist forums (i.e. human natures. 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