Zine Ecologies: Creative Environmentalisms and Literary Activisms

Abstract

Writers, artists, activists, and others are finding creative ways to engage with, and disrupt and unsettle, commentaries on the climate emergency. In this paper, we argue that the do-it-yourself ethic and aesthetic of zines (small-circulation, self-published magazines) and zine-making offers a creative and empowering approach to environmental storytelling, and that zines do different kinds of ‘work’ around positioning, narrating, and responding to ecological problems. Through the idea of ‘zine ecologies,’ we examine the entanglements between zines and zineing, environmentalism, environmental politics, literature, art, activism and protest, and more. The idea of ‘zine ecologies’ has a dual existence in this paper. We use this idea both as the provocation for a mini-zine that accompanies this paper, but also to scaffold discussion of the quiet politics and activisms of student zine projects responding to, for example, an environmental writer, a piece of activist-writing, and/or an environmental issue/scenario.