Though Miami is one of the places most vulnerable to climate change, climate change threats are not at the forefront of most citizen’s worries. Furthermore, though all Miamians are vulnerable in the face of climate change, they are stratified into communities that will bear the consequences of that threat with different intensities, including frontline communities that struggle to bring visibility to themselves and their concerns. Activist-citizens need to connect the dots between ethical, social, political, economic, and environmental issues and create kinship networks that break through compartmentalized communities. The purpose of this thesis is to explore how climate justice initiatives, like the Miami People’s Climate March, catalyze action and subvert institutional narratives that preclude change by collaboratively reimagining communities as communal ecosystems. These initiatives foreground the relationality between human and nonhuman subjects, demand visibility for frontline communities, and unite diverse populations in solidarity while simultaneously acknowledging and celebrating difference.
