Introduction

This chapter moves away from the dynamics of power described so far and specifically focuses on activists’ practices of resistance against power. It is as equally interested in activists’ visual practices of resistance (exemplified by the writing of graffiti and tags, or the use of stickers, stencils, flags and flyers around the city) as it is in their performative practices (which include rallies and flash mobs, among other things). In particular, the chapter conceptualizes eco-justice visual and performative practices in the city as crucial ‘affective conveyors’ of knowledge around eco-justice harms and injustices. Captured through our senses, activist practices of resistance are, indeed, affectively registered by us before being cognitively processed and responded to. Obviously, activist practices do not equally affect everyone; actually, they may not affect some people at all. For example, they may not affect those who drive through the city sitting in their SUVs, those who walk compulsively checking their phones or generally those who navigate the city without sensing and being attuned to their surroundings. By the same token, green visual resistance and street-based protest may affectively ‘move’ some other people, leading to more complex and alternative readings of public spaces and their function, everyday meanings and imagined futures. In short, by mobilizing the senses and affect, urban visual and performative resistance may help generate a different ‘sense of place’ – one that champions eco-justice and that is ultimately more respectful of the environment and non-human species inhabiting the planet alongside us.

Focusing on the senses and affect in urban public space seems relevant and topical particularly in pandemic times, when (at least initially) human presence in urban space was called into question (with messages saying, ‘Stay at home!’), our behaviour was more tightly regulated and our sensorial experiences were seriously curtailed (Young, 2021). Even during this time, however, the sensorial and affective dimensions were never abandoned or proved useless in making sense of our experiences of and in the city; rather, as Young (2021) suggested, they helped us capture newly formed ‘atmospheres of control’ in the city, as well as their subversion and resistance.