ABSTRACT
This chapter reflects on the ecological handprint, a metaphor for citizen agency
which has emerged spontaneously in discourses of sustainability as various
attempts are made to rally citizens to ‘reduce their ecological footprint and
increase their handprint’, that is to take action to restore degraded environ-
ments, reduce carbon emissions or address ecological and social injustice. This
reflection is set in the immediate context of the 8,000 earthquakes and after-
shocks which have devastated my home city of Christchurch New Zealand in
the months since 4 September 2010. From within our urban disaster, I explore
the possibilities for citizens to take action to re-imagine and recreate alternative
futures. In discussion I draw on Arendt’s concept of ‘natality’, Honig’s vision of
‘emergence’, and Iris Young’s ideas of ‘decentering’, to offer an alternative vision
of a social handprint as the imprint of an embedded struggle for ecological
citizenship and social justice.
