From the “Greta Thunberg Effect” to Green Conversion of Universities: The Reconstructive Praxis of Discursive Mobilizations

Abstract

This paper investigates how one could envision a discursive mobilization process to transform protest movements into agents that help reconstruct the universities as agents supporting material mobilizations leading to ecological reconstruction. After reviewing universities’ ecological footprints, the author shows how theories of mobilization and conjunctures could contribute to understanding how this transformation could occur. Discursive mobilizations advance values or ideas but stop short of innovation and production system changes. Material mobilizations affect deployment of human, technological, industrial and financial resources. Conjunctures involve linkages of political activity to spaces implicated in both kinds of mobilizations in a given historical time frame. The study shows many nations having both extensive climate activism and concentrations of university students creating a possibility for greening education centers based on various models for doing so. Yet, two key problems emerge. First, some nations lag in climate activism. Second, interest in a Green Deal or Green New Deal does not always match the level of attention to leading activist Greta Thunberg. The paper illustrates how such problems can be addressed by university-based campaigns linking activist cohorts, mobilization supporting green conversion of higher education and solidaristic, mutual aid exchanges among regions.

An Examination of Selected Texas Higher Education Institution Environmental Improvement Efforts from the Perspective of Sustainability Managers

“…In addition, they also had methods in place for faculty and students to have their personal devices collected and disposed of properly, including bins in faculty offices and student dorms as well as ways for all to request e-waste disposal on their websites. Feldman (2021) indicated the need for HEIs to be sustainable, for those which are not The fourth research question that guided the present study was: What can be done to assist other HEIs in implementation of sustainability practices? The AASHE has outlined ways for HEIs to become more sustainable.…”