ICLS Symposium | iY-2_CLIMATE-JUSTICE | Telling the Spiders’ Stories: Relationship Building as Essential Infrastructuring for Climate Justice Learning

There is growing attention to the need to design climate and environmental learning opportunities that support collective action towards more just futures. In this symposium, we explore the many kinds of connections required for collective work: connecting diverse knowledge traditions and cultural paradigms, connecting histories to futures, and connecting youth and teachers with community-based actors who are advancing environmental justice. We use the metaphor of spiderwebs to describe the networks of knowledges, worldviews, and stakeholders that foster visions of more just futures. Moreover, we draw attention to the work of spiders, referring to the human actors who build and sustain these webs. Our studies explore the complexity of maintaining spiderwebs across disciplinary and institutional boundaries and underscore the relational work needed to address the associated power differentials. We argue that this web-weaving constitutes critical infrastructuring for climate justice teaching, learning, and action, and advocate for recognition and support of this indispensable form of labor.