“Not an Environmentalist”: Strategic Centrism, Cultural Stereotypes, and Disidentification

Abstract

Birding has long been associated with environmental activism, from its origins as a scientific hobby in the nineteenth century to today’s citizen scientist birders. My research with birders shows that despite their political activism, personal actions, and ecological beliefs, many disidentify as activists or environmentalists. Using data from 30 in-depth interviews and three years of ethnographic research with birders, I argue their disidentification comes from two interrelated sources. First, these birders followed the Audubon Society’s approach of strategic centrism, espousing a centrist identity and strategy of conservation. Second, these birders disidentified with the identity of “environmental activist” because of negative cultural stereotypes about environmental activists, which was bolstered by the Audubon Society’s strategic centrism. These mutually reinforcing phenomena create a situation that doubly discourages these birders from identifying as environmental activists. This paper contributes to sociological understandings of the interplay between culture, identity, and environmental activism.

Shaping the Environmental Self: The Role of Childhood Experiences in Shaping Identity Standards of Environmental Behavior in Adulthood

“…However, each respondent interpreted their environmental behavior as part of a particular identity. This is consistent with research that has found that individuals can disidentify with environmentalist terminology based on particular conceptions of terms while still holding behavior standards that would be defined as "environmentalist" by others (Cherry 2019). This article explores the pathways to developing the identity standards that include environmental movement participation from the perspective of respondents.…”

Volunteering in the Citizen Science Project “Insects of Saxony”—The Larger the Island of Knowledge, the Longer the Bank of Questions

“…Regarding the personalities of CSs, it would be interesting to further investigate to what degree nature conservation is part of their identity. Given the established community of birders with their distinct identity, which differs from that of environmentalists [ 51 ], we might also find an identity of insecters ? Udall et al published in 2020 a theoretical framework of how to test identities in relation to other psychological variables relevant for pro-environmental behaviour [ 52 ].…”

Climate change concern and discourse among nature lovers

“…With these pathways far outweighing the barriers, many nature-related organizations could potentially be safe spaces to discuss climate change. Although these organizations tend to avoid con ict by choosing a centrist path 9 and their members tended to avoid talking about climate change, my ndings suggest that members were fairly uni ed in their concern about climate change. Some were even open-minded about talking about climate change.…”

“…There is copious literature on the environmental movement but little on movement-adjacent groups and their members. One such study of the Audubon Society found that birders tended to distance themselves from the environmental movement 9 .…”