Whose Grief Counts? Queer & BIPOC Representation in North American Eco-Grief Discourse: An Exclusionary-Inclusionary Model Analysis

Abstract

Among the emerging climate change consequences, eco-grief is increasingly being recognized as an emotional response to environmental loss due to worsening climate change. However, despite eco-grief’s growing recognition, many marginalized perspectives such as BIPOC and Queer perspectives remain excluded from the discourse, even though these communities are among the most vulnerable to climate change effects. This study thus investigates how Eurocentric environmental understandings and cis-heteronormative grief frameworks work to exclude or include BIPOC and Queer grief perspectives within the North American eco-grief context. Using a qualitative, inductive thematic analysis of 50 sources, including 25 peer-reviewed articles and 25 grey literature texts, this research applies an exclusionary-inclusionary coding model across four parent categories: ‘Eurocentric Environmental Understandings’, ‘Cis-Heteronormative Grief Frameworks’, ‘BIPOC and Queer Eco-Grief Resilience’, and Intersectional Barriers. The findings reveal that the current eco-grief discourse does largely exclude BIPOC and Queer eco-grief perspectives due to Eurocentric and cis-heteronormative grief understandings dominant in the North American context. This study as a result argues that eco-grief discourse must be reimagined through decolonial, intersectional, and community-based frameworks to fully recognize and validate the eco-grief experiences of marginalized communities like BIPOC and Queer people and building more inclusive and equitable responses to climate emotions amongst and environmental justice responses amongst increasing climate change effects.