Trust in Human and Non-Human Others Born During Protests About Climate Politics in Rural Germany

In the autumn of 2020, Dannenrod, a village in Germany, composed of half-timbered houses, was surrounded by tents, trailers, and trucks housing 20.000 climate activists of different backgrounds. The activists, coming from all of Europe, were joined by local residents for whom this was the first major environmental they in which they took part. This paper shows how nature as a connective Third presence enabled the robustness of emerging trust and solidarity connecting urban and rural protesters in the tent city near the village of Dannenrod, Hesse, where a large-scale protest against a state highway to be constructed through a climate resilient forest took place. Taking the crisis of trust between Green representatives at the state and federal level and local city council members, this paper presents activists’ trust process shifting from representative conceptions of democracy toward trust in Humans and non-Human others during conflicts about climate politics.