Engagement and politicization processes within the Citizens’ Convention on Climate

Our aim is to shed light on citizen engagement during the French Citizens’ Convention on Climate. This assembly established an original framework for collective action and invites us to reflect on its effects on “engagement” i.e., the propensity of participants to adopt the subject under discussion as a cause for personal involvement. First, we study the “processes” of engagement in order to broaden our understanding of the forms and discourses of engagement: we link personal and intimate aspects of engagement to participation in debates to develop measures to send to the government. In the second part, we examine the processes of politicization at work. In particular, we look at two examples of proposed measures, on food ethics and ecocide, which have become truly emblematic of this “overflow,” a consequence of politicization, as we show. In the third part, we look at the effects of the Convention on the forms and dynamics of engagement after the assembly ended. The research, based on observations conducted in particular within the group “Se nourrir” (to feed oneself) and on interviews conducted after the Convention, is rooted in a pragmatic perspective of studying protest movements, giving importance to situations of engagement.