In this paper, I call for geographers to engage further with a so far under-explored concept of the socio-ecological imagination, which I define as a variant of political-geographical imagination(s) concerned with envisioning (and progressing) the transformation of relationships between human society and the rest of the planetary environment. In response to escalating ecological breakdown, and a recent surge in environmental movement mobilisation(s) led in many places by young people, this paper seeks to contribute to expanding understandings of the socio-ecological imagination, drawing on interviews and participant observation with young environmental activists in the North East of England. The paper performs two major tasks. First, through analysing the ways in which the environmentalists narrate their imaginaries of socio-ecological transformation(s), it is argued that dominant oppositional tendencies within participant narratives result from a tension between antagonistic and imaginative forms of transformative politics. Second, the paper explores in more depth the main forces constraining the imagination of alternative socio-ecological futures, proposing three major interconnected barriers that emerge from the environmentalists' narratives: crisis lock-in; colonisation of the social imaginary; and dualistic temporal imaginaries of transformation. In sum, I suggest that these barriers warn of an imaginative gap between our current social reality and just and sustainable futures, driven by structural and psychological pressures faced by activists in the current era of multi-dimensional crisis. Bridging this gap can be aided by a greater engagement of geographers and environmental movements with a socio-ecological imagination and a processual understanding of space–time.

中文翻译：

---

社会生态想象：危机时代的青年环保活动家构建转型

在本文中，我呼吁地理学家进一步研究迄今为止尚未充分探索的社会生态想象概念，我将其定义为政治地理学想象的一种变体，涉及设想（和推进）社会的转变。人类社会与地球其他环境之间的关系。为应对不断升级的生态崩溃，以及最近由年轻人在许多地方发起的环保运动动员的激增，本文旨在通过对年轻环保人士的采访和参与观察，扩大对社会生态想象的理解。英格兰东北部的活动家。该论文执行两项主要任务。第一的，通过分析环保主义者叙述他们对社会生态转型的想象的方式，有人认为参与者叙事中的主要对立倾向是由于转型政治的对抗形式和想象形式之间的紧张关系造成的。其次，本文更深入地探讨了限制替代社会生态未来想象的主要力量，提出了环保主义者叙述中出现的三个主要相互关联的障碍：危机锁定；社会想象的殖民化；和转换的二元时间想象。总而言之，我认为这些障碍警告我们当前的社会现实与公正和可持续的未来之间存在想象的鸿沟，在当前多维危机时代，活动家面临的结构性和心理压力所驱动。地理学家和环境运动的更多参与可以通过社会生态想象力和对时空的过程理解来帮助弥合这一差距。