Rekindling community spirit and identity: the role of ecoprotestors

Abstract

One of the features of current society is that of protest against environmental issues and this paper considers protest against road building and the ecoprotest movement. In doing so it considers both the local inhabitants and new age travellers who are involved in such protest to show that not only does ecoprotest, as a form of protest, raise the profile of environmental issues within public discourse but also opens up space for such discourse. Of greater significance is the effect which the ecoprotest, movement has upon a local sense of identity and community. Indeed the travellers themselves, through their action and engagement, demonstrate that the key determinant of community identity is grounded in self‐belief and shared aspirations rather than in an externally imposed definition or in any economic imperatives. This paper shows that the migration of this sense of self‐belief into mainstream society serves to demonstrate that community spirit and identity are extant in modern society but need a catalyst for their re‐emergence. In doing so the role of ecoprotest points towards a possible mechanism for the re‐emergence of an active and participatory sense of community identity within society as a whole.