Make love, not war?: Radical environmental activism’s reconfigurative potential and pitfalls

Abstract

New radical environmental action movements are attracting large numbers of diverse actors who inevitably will take inspiration and learn from mistakes of those radical environmental organizations that precede them and continue today into middle age. The representational strategies of these established organizations are of specific interest as they enter a maturity phase that coincides with the planet experiencing an unprecedented anthropogenic moment of reckoning – a time when more broadly engaging and transformative activism is paramount to reconfiguring ecological, societal, and spatial orientations. We focus on Sea Shepherd, a global ocean protection organization founded in the same decade as many other formatively radical organizations, to examine its historic and current representations of its direct action stance; its multiple and at times conflicting positioning of cetaceans; its emphasis on celebrity and timely campaigns; and its longstanding military, war, and piracy framing – much of which has garnered attention based on appealing to news values of conventional media outlets. We illustrate ways direct action may be framed as in opposition to current extractive practices ( against framing) or as a collaborative means to thriving futures ( with framing) and consider ways activism frames might eschew violent clashes and celebrity long valued by conventional media outlets and speak more to today’s broader internet-savvy populations and to the reconfigurative potential of guardianship, interconnectedness, and nurturance.

Activism and non-activism: The politics of claiming environmental justice in Vietnam

“…In this sense, our results provide insight into not only activism under authoritarianism but also how such activism can be shaped by different constructions of environmental justice. On the other hand, the results reflect the value of critical environmental justice in advocating for analysis going beyond institutions for a broader anti-authoritarian perspective (Pellow, 2018). The opportunities and challenges for activism presented in this paper should not be limited to Vietnam as a stand-alone unit among the global context, but patterns that might arise in the face of oppression and exclusion.…”

“…Equally important is the hybridity of employees from institutionalised NGOs discreetly participating as independent activists or using their institutional familiarity to garner non-public information. Aiding human resources was the strategic use of social media to attract public support for more 'radical activism', as seen in broad backing for and participation in the protests (Fan et al, 2020;Milstein et al, 2020). Activists have also engaged in 'scale-jumping', referring to civil society organisations bypassing the state to engage directly at the international level (Smith, 2004), particularly between Vietnamese and Taiwanese activists in the marine disaster.…”

“…Analyses thus shifted from patterns of environmental inequality themselves to distinctive ways that communities and activities translated these patterns into ‘grievances, attributed blame and advocated remedies’ (Holifield, 2015: 589). Critical environmental justice, as discussed by Pellow (2018), embraces multi-scalar methodological and theoretical approaches to environmental issues to more efficiently grasp the complex spatial and temporal causes, consequences and possible resolutions to environmental justice struggles (Holifield, 2015; Pellow, 2018; Svarstad and Benjaminsen, 2020). Environmental justice, as a utility of social movement frames and discourses, managed to bridge environment, labour, recreation and social justice issues by restructuring and repackaging ‘structurally separate but ideologically compatible issues’ into one environmental justice frame (Taylor, 2000: 562).…”

On the Possible Existence of a ‘First Law of Environmental Stewardship’: How Organisations Bring Volunteers Together in Social and Geographic Space

“…Generally speaking, however, the two types of institutions can often be distinguished by a key geographic concept: their spatial scale of operation. ENPOs, such as the Sierra Club and the World Wildlife Fund, are typically most active at national or global scales, seek to influence major legislation or transform entrenched values and behaviours in society, and influence mainstream dialogues on how we experience nature (Arora-Jonsson and Ågren 2019;Milstein, McGaurr and Lester 2020). CBOs, on the other hand, tend to have a distinctively local focus on a particular cause (or set of causes) in a particular place, and they seek to transform conditions on the ground in that place (Molden et al 2017;Amsden, Stedman and Kruger 2013;Stedman 2002).…”

Fishing for Politics?

“…Equally important is the hybridity of employees from institutionalised NGOs discreetly participating as independent activists or using their institutional familiarity to garner non-public information. Aiding human resources was the strategic use of social media to attract public support for more 'radical activism', as seen in broad backing for and participation in the protests (Fan et al, 2020;Milstein et al, 2020).…”