Who is an Environmentalist? The Polysemy of Environmentalist Terms and Correlated Environmental Actions

Abstract

Conducting and interpreting an interview is more problematic when informants use a word that has IntroductionThis paper examines how members of environmental groups and, to a lesser degree, the public define and use the word "environmentalist," and how such definitions of self relate to individual environmental actions. Although the meaning of "environmentalist" varies across individuals, and shifts as the same individual uses it on different occasions, we will show that these variations follow regular patterns. Decoding these semantic shifts can improve our understanding of identities within the environmental movement, better relate identity to behavior, and increase validity when using the term

Social Movement Identity: Validating a Measure of Identification with the Environmental Movement*

“…Another social psychologist has employed symbolic interactionism's classic ''Twenty Statements Test'' (TST), a data collection technique that is cumbersome to use, to examine the ''ecological identities'' of deep ecologists (Zavestoski, 2003). Similarly, anthropologists have employed in-depth, face-to-face interviews (including administration of the TST) of members of a wide range of local environmental groups in efforts to provide rich analyses of the multiple meanings of ''environmentalist'' (Kitchell et al, 2000;Tesch and Kempton, 2004), presumably clarifying both the personal and collective identities of environmentalists.…”

Environmental identity formation in nonformal environmental education programs

“…According to the Declaration of the Intergovernmental Conference on Environmental Education (UNESCO 1977), one of the goals of environmental education is 'to provide every person with opportunities to acquire the knowledge, values, attitudes, commitment, and skills needed to protect and improve the environment' (26). Holland and colleagues (Holland 2003;Kitchell et al 2000;Tesch and Kempton 2004) note, however, that how people define different roles for protecting the environment ('environmentalist,' 'environmental activist,' 'conservationist,' 'animal lover' or other related terms) varies across different social groups, and people are not likely to take action for the environment in any sustained way unless they incorporate protecting and improving the environment into their identity. Therefore it is important to understand how people develop an identity as someone who cares about the environment and the forms of action that matter to them.…”

“…Holland and her colleagues (Holland 2003;Kempton and Holland 2003;Kitchell et al 2000;Tesch and Kempton 2004). It is to observe the program memories that people retain after many years, and to determine whether these memories illustrate the processes of environmental identity formation in childhood that social practice theory would predict.…”

Moral Outpouring

“…The first measure draws on a rich body of work in environmental sociology (Dunlap and McCright 2008a;McCright and Dunlap 2008), psychology (Clayton and Opotow 2003), and anthropology (Kitchell et al 2000;Tesch and Kempton 2004) about the meaning of "environmentalist" identity. With such polysemy about the term, I follow R.E.…”