Postapocalyptic environmentalism and activist subjectivities in the Dark Mountain Project

Environmental movements in the Global North are increasingly marked by postapocalyptic tendencies, articulated through diverse narratives and politics that treat catastrophic loss as inevitable or already unfolding. This paper presents an in-depth qualitative case study of the Dark Mountain Project – an established postapocalyptic actor – to highlight their narratives and practices. We bring attention to many intertwined ‘endings’ that co-exist within their narrative, and how their theory of change embraces uncertainty and resists futurity as a guide for action. Dark Mountain’s form of postapocalyptic practice, we argue, creates conditions for uncertainty-driven, experimental forms of subjectivity. While ecocentrism remains central to their politics, it is the postapocalyptic dimension that proves most generative, actively inviting experimentation in narratives, practices, and emerging ways of being. Dark Mountain’s postapocalyptic activism – often dismissed as withdrawal, apoliticism, or hopelessness – offers a distinctive challenge to reformist, system-preserving approaches, potentially opening space to (un)make the future in the present.