Imagining justice: approaching justice as a process of imaginative hybridity in times of polycrisis
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Date
2026-07-07
Authors
Mullally, Gerard
Boyle, Evan
Gaston, Sadhbh
Wood, Nathan
McElherron, Catherine
Revez, Alexandra
Creed, Elizabeth
Dunphy, Niall
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Frontiers Media SA
Published Version
Abstract
In times of polycrisis, the range of interconnected risks – environmental, societal, economical, geopolitical, technological – create the milieu in which we must face these challenges as nodes within a network. No individual one can be addressed in isolation but instead must be understood as relational and operating within a unified system. Within this context, considerations of justice are increasingly referred to in relation to climate change. The system-wide changes needed in responding to the polycrisis ensures that social inequality must be understood as a central tenet across any potential or aspirational transformative change. As such, it is important to consider what justice might look like with regards to how we get there, who leads the narrative of the future, and in what fundamental ways is it different from where we currently are. We aim not to separate specific justice narratives (e.g., climate justice, energy justice) from societal justice on a broader level. Instead, within this paper, the importance of imagination in questions of justice is outlined as it is concerned with responding to climate change, and the polycrisis with which it is entangled. Climate (in)justice acts as a useful heuristic for understanding normative issues that may culminate in relation to climate change but is not operative as a specific isolated outcome or orientation. Climate justice is not a possible outcome outside of wider societal justice. Climate change represents an unprecedented challenge to the human imagination in terms of the scope and scale of the impact on the natural world; the ability to visualise the social, political and economic consequences of these changes and how changing course is envisaged. Yet, since their foundations, questions of social justice have been related to processes of imagination. Within this paper, we explore the role of imagination in shaping attitudes and responses to the climate crisis, specifically examining how imaginative processes influence perceptions of justice and ethical considerations. The primary research question guiding this study is: How do imaginative processes contribute to shaping notions of justice in relation to the climate crisis?
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Keywords
Climate change , Imaginaries , Just Transitions , Justice , Polycrisis , [ERI] , [SocietyPoliticsEthics] , [EngineeringArchitecture]
Citation
Mullally, G, Boyle, E, Gaston, S, Wood, N, McElherron, C, Revez, A, Creed, E & Dunphy, N 2026, 'Imagining justice: approaching justice as a process of imaginative hybridity in times of polycrisis', Frontiers in Sustainability, vol. 7, pp. 1-11. https://doi.org/10.3389/frsus.2026.1809425