From responsibilization to responsibility: justifications of everyday ecological practices of Moscow youth and worth of proactivity

Abstract

ABSTRACT In modernity, responsibilization has become a tool for addressing public issues in citizens’ access to public goods, including the sphere of environmental protection. In Russia, having insufficient institutional, legislative, political, and discursive support, the emphasis has lately been put on the role of individuals in protecting the environment. Taking account of the ambivalent context of environmental activity, this paper aims to reconstruct the justifications that environmentally engaged youth in Moscow attach to their environmental engagement. We focus on the case of Moscow as a ‘bridge’ between the Western templates and the local institutional setting. The empirical basis of the research is 36 in-depth interviews with Muscovites, who are persistently engaged in caring for the environment. The empirical results show that the environmental engagement of the youth is justified as an anchor of one’s identity of a reflexive, autonomous, self-managing subject. The results allow to broaden the concept of responsibility and citizenship among the youth in the states where a clash between neoliberal policies of responsibilization and the actual institutional context can be observed.