Atmospheric Conditioning: Confronting Societal Disruptions Through Solidarity Building

In 2024, a Government of Canada research centre specializing in foresight published a captivating report that foregrounded the potential risks associated with the proliferation of 35 possible societal disruptions. By incorporating the report’s findings as the foundation for a senior undergraduate seminar in Communication Studies, I designed the course as an opportunity for students to grapple with the notion of societal disruptions, all the while laying the groundwork for the group to engage in the building of solidaristic ties and relations. The elaboration of individual and collaborative research activities, combined with the cultivation of a care-centred learning environment, contributed to a stronger sense of group cohesion and of shared reciprocity. Our semester-long sustained engagement with attending to both present and imminent disruptions created the conditions for the group to cultivate “a condition of shared vulnerability” (Graziano et al. 2025. Pirate care: acts against the criminalization of solidarity . Pluto Press, p. 64) at the same time that it enabled us to participate in the shaping of a solidaristic atmosphere. In openly resisting the potentially negative charge associated with fatalism, nihilism, and pessimism, the group’s efforts to produce solutions and alternatives as a response to growing insecurity and uncertainty should be seen as important small-scale experiments capable of modeling the kinds of interventions needed to build solidarity and collective power.