The intersectional approach to intergenerational justice: a first sketch

The idea that I intend to defend in this very short essay is that intergenerational claims of justice could be best addressed through an intersectional analytical framework, that is, from a perspective that takes into account all the social and temporal positions that each individual involved in the justice claim occupies. There is little point, in other words, in asking what the single individual owes to future generations, for example in terms of climate mitigation or financial prudence, without first contextualising the individual within the multiple relationships of domination, vulnerability and responsibility relative to the social groups to which she/he belongs. After briefly introducing four of the main social categories (social class, nationality, gender and ethnicity) that intersect with the temporal category of generation in the climate issue, I will focus, for reasons of space, on the relationship between the categories of social class and generation.