A festival of action: climate justice and everyday activism in higher education

Human-induced climate change is an established scientific fact with devastating consequences for human society and all planetary systems, potentially driving a sixth mass extinction. Yet most people continue their daily lives, seemingly detached from the urgency of the crisis. Meanwhile, universities have become sites where students are burdened by debt, competition and market logics that, alongside heightened restrictions on free speech and organising, constrain possibilities for collective action. This chapter examines the “Festival of Action” at Western Sydney University as a case study of resistance against these market constraints and an experiment in cultivating everyday activism for climate justice in higher education. Emerging from a transdisciplinary curriculum innovation project underpinned by student–staff partnerships, the Festival was created as a mechanism to transform campus life into a space where solidarity, community and creative resistance can flourish. Through event-based pedagogy, ranging from curriculum-linked activities to art, storytelling, climate action stalls and reuse initiatives, the Festival creates entry points into activism, connecting university life with broader social and climate justice movements. We argue that such spaces are vital for enabling students and staff to think and act beyond the dominant modes of 21st century capitalist colonialism, if we are to confront the accelerating plunge into climate chaos.