The Idea of a Counter-Structure: Rethinking Collective Action against Climate Injustice

This article argues that addressing the structural injustices of climate change requires rethinking collective action. Disruptive and prefigurative politics are often treated as separate collective action repertoires, but I argue that a just energy transition requires that they work in tandem. To capture this interaction, I propose the idea of “counter-structural” collective action, in which disruptive protest creates windows of opportunity that prefigurative alternatives can then fill. Through analysis of two UK climate movements, Transition Towns (TTs) and Camps for Climate Action (CCA), I show how activists reconfigure structural elements to build new, carbon-free social and political forms. The theory of counter-structural action provides a framework for assessing the empirical cases. The cases, in turn, illustrate a broader conception of collective action that better reflects the social theory grounding structural injustice. Together, the theory and cases support the dual aims of climate justice: challenging fossil-fuel path dependence and advancing egalitarianism.