Youth and climate justice movements in Portugal

LusoGlobe Research in Charge: Cristina Nunes 

End

31 March 2026

Abstract

Climate change and climate justice issues attract the majority of young activists in the national and international contexts over the last years. In Portugal, young adult activists have emerged with new repertoires of protest such as direct action and civil disobedience that seems to break with the traditional methods of actions usually used by Portuguese activists in the past. These new young activists also distinguish themselves from previous environmental associations through their grassroots model and the creation of protest events through digital and social networks. In addition, international research also shows that climate justice mobilizes young people who are dissastified with traditional political parties and reject participation in formal organizations (Wahlstorm et al. 2019). This project will map the main climate justice activists and collective action events that emerged from 2019 to 2024 in Portuguese society. The research follows these objectives: (1) Analyse the socio-biographical portraits of activists belonging to most representative climate justice groups (2) Reconstruct the main national and international events in which Portuguese activists participated (3) Analyse the impact of digital media on their international connections and links (4) Identify social and cultural action meanings to determine their positions against political and economic opponents and (5) Identify their relations with political parties and pressure groups such as trade unions. We will apply a qualitative methodology with different tools to collect empirical data. Firstly, our research will use content analysis to assess the documents from activists’ websites, their own individual digital profiles (Facebook, Instagram) and podcasts dedicated to climate justice movements. In addition, we will also use and adapt the Lahire’s method of sociological portraits (Lahire, 2002) to study activist’s life stories. Lahire proposes a detailed analysis of life trajectories and daily practices of individuals, aiming to capture the diversity and uniqueness of their lives. This method of creating sociological portraits differs from other qualitative approaches by emphasizing the importance of attention to detail and the heterogeneity of individual experiences. We will conduct 20 in-depth interviews to collect biographical data. There is limited research in Portuguese Sociology that have applied Lahire’s Method (Gomes et al., 2012; Lopes et al., 2018) and these studies didn´t focus on social movements and protest groups. Applyng Lahire´s method for the first time to biographical and sociological analysis of activists will be a significant contribution to Portuguese Sociology and the study of social movements and collective action.

Researchers

Cristina Nunes (Lusófona University) and Walter Lippold (Instituto Nacional de Ciência e Tecnologia (INCT Proprietas) da Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brasil)

Outputs

2 Scientific articles in national and international scientific journals

Funding and Institution

No funding (yet)