The humankind uses more of earth’s resources than the planet’s ability to provide renewable resources (WWF 2016). This trend is also contributing to climate changes, which have been a topic on the global political agenda for decades. However, there has yet to be found a sustainable solution. People are becoming impatient of the politicians’ ability to solve the issue and through grassroot movements and activism a range of different approaches have been made to find solutions to climate changes. Social media provides new opportunities to organize large groups of loosely connected people of interest towards a common goal, in this case to take care of the planet. Social media have also developed new forms of political engagement. This thesis is a case study of climate change activism through the zero waste community in Denmark that based on framing theory (Goffman 1974), online observations of local Facebook groups and Instagram activity as well as in-depth interviews pursues to understand in what ways participants use social media to make their everyday climate activism meaningful. In this thesis, Bakardjieva (2009, 2012) concepts of subactivism and mundane citizenship combined with framing theory are used to understand the ways mundane climate change actions are perceived meaningful for the participants in the Danish zero waste community. The study shows examples of how participants of the zero waste community in Denmark use social media in a variety of ways to make their mundane climate activism meaningful for them. They use social media to be inspired, share experiences and feel part of a community that emphasize climate change activism through mundane every day routines. Through online discussions in Facebook groups and on Instagram the participants create, challenge and negotiate a collective action frame of the zero waste movement, which proves useful in motivating and inspiring them to continue to do small acts in their everyday life.

This thesis explores the experience of participating in a ‘hidden’ gender separatist forum for women and nonbinary persons on Facebook. It does so through a case study of a group called Växtgäris, which constitutes one link in a chain of gender separatist forums established on Swedish Facebook in recent years, whose names all end with -gäris. The aim of the research was to investigate what motivates people to participate in such groups, how members understand the separatist framework with regards to their experience of the forum, and how such online practices might relate to notions of ‘safe space’ and ‘mundane citizenship’. The study combines two (digital) ethnographic methods for collecting data: participant observations of the group’s discussion thread and in-depth interviews with eight members. In analysing the empirical material, the Roestone Collective’s re-conceptualisation of ‘safe space’ was combined with Bakardijeva’s theorisation of ‘mundane citizenship’ (and the related notion of ‘subactivism’) to address different segments of the data.Results show that participants in Växtgäris hold a variety of motivations for participating in the group, such as exchanging knowledge, connecting with other people interested in plants and to escape oppressive behaviour. Interviewees further described a variety of attitudes towards the group’s separatist element, ranging from very positive to more questioning standpoints. The study concludes that Växtgäris might provide a ‘safe space’ for sharing information, expressing feminist views, and ‘geeky’ expressions of love for plants. Finally, inconspicuous individual actions, such as referring to wider societal and political discourses and planting certain linguistic codes, might be viewed as expressions of ‘mundane citizenship’ and ‘subactivism’. The thesis adds to research investigating contemporary feminist expression, community formation and identity construction in online environments and further reveals how marginalised identities in Sweden might deal with oppression in today’s increasingly digital society.