Environmental Protest Research Articles

Representations of environmental protest on the ground and in the cloud: The NOTAP protests in activist practice and social visual media

This article advances knowledge on activist technosocial practice by studying the realities and representations of on-the-ground environmental resistance and their intersections with visual representations of protest on Twitter. It does so by focusing on the case of resistance to the Trans Adriatic Pipeline, commonly known as TAP, in southern Italy, and on mixed methods for data collection, including ethnographic observations, semi-structured interviews and an AIassisted visual ethnography of a large collection of computationally collected and categorised images posted on Twitter. By comparing online and offline representations of protest, the study demonstrated that only a partial overlapping existed between them, thus adding a nuance to the digital criminological literature premised on the existence of blurred boundaries between online and offline experiences of injustice. Themes overlapped in their representations of protest, with images of on-theground visual resistance being used on Twitter to extend and amplify the contestation of everyday spaces and to support offline and online initiatives to stop the pipeline. Differences in the recurring themes were instead reconnected to the inherent secrecy of some of the protest’s strategies and to the typical ways in which Twitter tends to be used by social movements.

Tüketim Karşıtı Yeni Yaşam Biçimi Köye Dönüşün Medyada Sunumu: Yeni Köylüler Örneği

Tüketim kültürünün yarattığı aşırı tüketim maddi doyumsuzluk, kaynakların tükenmesi, kültürel yozlaşma, çevre kirliliği ve ürün bolluğunun yarattığı kararsızlık gibi olumsuz etkiler yaratmaktadır. Bu etkilerin farkına varan tüketiciler tüketim karşıtlığı kapsamında ürün ve markaların boykot edilmesinden karşı reklamlara, çevre protestolarından freegan akıma kadar çeşitli boyutlarda aşırı tüketime ve modern yaşamın yarattığı koşullara tepki göstermektedirler. Tüketim karşıtı söylem sürdürülebilirlik, organik üretim, sürdürülebilir tüketim, çevre bilinci, konuları üzerinden de şekillenmektedir. Tüketicilerin tüketim karşıtı eğilimleri, ürün tercihlerinden tüketimi azaltan yeni yaşam tasarımlarına ya da mekansal olarak şehirlerden doğaya yeni yaşam biçimleri kuracak şekilde farklı uygulamalarda kendini göstermektedir. Tüketicilerin tüketim karşıtı eğilimlerinin oluşmasında medyanın sunduğu içerikler tüketim karşıtlığına atfedilen değerleri ve imajları ileten bir söylem yaratmaktadır. Bu bağlamda araştırmada medyanın ürettiği içeriklerde hangi temaları kullanarak tüketicileri tüketim karşıtlığı yönünde teşvik ettiğinin ortaya konulması amaçlanmıştır. Araştırmada önceden belirgin olmayan temaların ve boyutların ortaya çıkarılmasına ve toplanan verilerin derinlemesine analiz edilmesine imkan vermesi nedeniyle içerik analizi tercih edilmiştir. İçerikleri bağlamında TRT Belgesel kanalında yayınlanan “Yeni Köylü” programı, CNNTÜRK kanalında yayınlanan “Yeşil Doğa” programı ve TRT Belgesel kanalında yayınlanan “Bi Çiftlik” programı incelenmiştir. Program içerikleri deşifre edilerek ortaya çıkan nitel verilerin çözümlenmesinde tematik kodlama yapılmıştır.

Road Traffic and Aircraft Noise as Drivers of Environmental Protest?

This article investigates whether and to what extent unfavorable local environmental conditions furnish an important motivator for environmental protest. We do so using individual-level data on objective and subjectively perceived residential road traffic and aircraft noise pollution, pertaining to the cities of Mainz (Germany) and Zurich (Switzerland). By referring to fine-grained noise data, we are able to test the predictive power of grievances and self-interest in explaining protest participation more stringently than has been the case in most previous studies. Theoretically, our study is inspired by Klandermans’ socio-psychological framework of political protest, the pressure-response approach, the self-interest perspective, and the collective-interest model. Our empirical findings only partially confirm the grievances assumption that unfavorable local environmental conditions in the form of residential road traffic and aircraft noise stimulate environmental protest. Noise caused by airplanes seems to be more “protest-inducing” than that produced by road traffic. It is not so much the objectively measurable noise level as its subjective perception and evaluation that are deciding factors. However, in line with Klandermans’ protest framework and other theories of political protest, there are more influential drivers of environmental protest, such as environmental concerns and a left-wing political ideology. Thus, the effects of residential road traffic and aircraft noise turn out to be relatively moderate. Ultimately, this means that our tailored measures of grievances corroborate a relatively well-established finding of protest research.

Anxiety and Ambivalence: NGO–Activist Partnership in China’s Environmental Protests, 2007–2016

This article examines how partnership between social organizations and popular protests is affected by the state in the field of environmental activism. Drawing upon content analysis and in-depth interviews, we study non-governmental organization (NGO) engagement with 22 grassroots environmental protests in China, 2007–2016. We find that NGOs and grassroots protesters were mostly distant from each other to avoid state repression and retribution, but NGOs occasionally collaborated with protesters in an ambivalent manner because state control was contradictory, fragmented, and varying. NGOs either used institutional means to support the protesters or were informally and invisibly involved in those protests. Our research contributes to studies of the triangular relationship between the state, NGOs, and social movements. Specifically, we find that when NGOs lack the institutional access to policy making but are not fully controlled by the state, they have both incentives and spaces to make joint actions with grassroots activists.

Preparing medical students for global challenges beyond COVID-19.

The Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has highlighted the globalisation of modern healthcare challenges. As medical issues become increasingly globalised, healthcare professionals face new obstacles. Global problems require global solutions, and modern-day doctors must master collaboration across different countries and different disciplines, all whilst working in a world full of misleading information. As medicals students, we are convinced that these skills and attitudes will be even more crucial in the coming years. We believe that we must start developing them now, in order to shape the future role of a “globalised” doctor. COVID-19 is reported to cause respiratory tract infection, and infected individuals can present with fever, cough, breathlessness, and potentially fatal complications including respiratory distress syndrome and renal failure.1, 2 Dissemination of respiratory droplets produced when patients cough or sneeze lead to person-to-person transmission.3 Symptomatic patients are thought to be the most contagious; however, the disease can be spread even before obvious symptoms appear.4 Consequently, the spread of infection has led to a pandemic and global panic, causing flight cancellations, stranded cruise ships, thousands of news headlines, and millions of social media posts. The severity of this issue led the World Health Organisation to declare COVID-19 a global emergency in January, and as of April 3, 2020, there have been 972 640 confirmed cases worldwide and 50 325 deaths.5, 6 The spread of this virus has exemplified how rapidly future problems may similarly reach a global scale. In a changing landscape, filled with unpredictability, the role of a doctor must constantly evolve to fulfil the needs of society. Recent environmental protests, for example, have instigated wide debate on the impact of climate. Shifting weather patterns and excessive pollution will result in an increased incidence of cardiorespiratory disease, exerting more pressure on healthcare systems. Despite this, the potential health implications of global warming remained a minor focus of public discussion. It is important that doctors portray a medical perspective to policymakers and to the general public, thus ensuring the health ramifications of such topics are not under-represented. Hence, medical students must prepare to engage in such matters in the future. In the current digital era, the general public receives a lot of medical information from unreliable sources, particularly through “click-bait” headlines and posts shared via social media. COVID-19 has led to widespread transmission of information (and misinformation) across these channels, spreading both useful and harmful messages. Modern doctors have to navigate patients through the complexities of evidence-based medicine in the consultation room, but also across the Internet. Furthermore, to combat increasingly complex issues, many different professions will have to collaborate to formulate efficient solutions. Doctors must master working in interdisciplinary teams that may include politicians, engineers, environmentalists, and other professionals. Moreover, these teams may span across continents and thus, doctors must develop competencies in cross-cultural communication to effectively cooperate with different communities. As medical students, we believe it is the role of the doctor to foresee and adapt to potential healthcare challenges. At medical school, we are equipped with the skills and attitudes that shape the doctors we will become. We believe that we should begin preparing for the globalisation of medical issues as early as possible. This will require us to learn and adapt; however, we need medical schools to educate us on the current barriers to developing worldwide solutions and support us in seeking opportunities to acquire the necessary experience. Global health modules, medical electives, research exchange programmes, and healthcare leadership courses are offered by some of the medical schools in the United Kingdom. However, the accessibility of these opportunities is still limited, and most exist as optional components, which are available predominantly towards the end of undergraduate education. Furthermore, topics such as digital health remain under-represented in the current curriculum. Such modules could educate students on handling mass information from the Internet. We believe that earlier and better integrated access to these opportunities will prepare us for future challenges similar to COVID-19. The coronavirus crisis has demonstrated the new challenges healthcare professionals must overcome in the future. COVID-19 has required doctors around the world to work with local authorities and international bodies, as well as with each other, to limit the effects of the outbreak. This situation has also illustrated the importance of communication between the world of evidence-based medicine and the general public. We believe the primary role of the doctor will always be to treat their patients, but we must prepare to be the generation that redefines the role of our profession in a globalised world. The authors declare no conflict of interest. Conceptualisation: Aleksander Dawidziuk, Rishikesh Gandhewar. Writing - original draft: Aleksander Dawidziuk, Rishikesh Gandhewar. Writing - review and editing: Aleksander Dawidziuk, Rishikesh Gandhewar.

Friends or foes? How activists and non-activists perceive and evaluate each other.

Little is known about how activists and non-activists perceive and evaluate each other. This is important because activists often depend on societal support to achieve their goals. We examined these perceptions and evaluations in three field experiments set in different contexts, i.e., student protests in the Netherlands 2014/2015 (Study 1, activist sample N = 190; Study 2, non-activist sample N = 145), and environmental protests in Paris in 2015 (Study 3, activist sample N = 112). Through a scenario method, we manipulated the motivations expressed for (in)action by a member of the other group (i.e., an activist or non-activist) and measured individuals' perceptions and evaluations. Findings showed that activists perceived a non-activist as selfish and felt personally distant to them, especially when a non-activist dismissed moral obligation for action (Study 1 and 3). By contrast, non-activists had a rather positive view of activists, especially in response to an activist communicating collective concerns for action (Study 2). Study 4 (N = 103) further supported this pattern of findings by showing that activists perceived larger intergroup differences than non-activists. We conclude that mutual perceptions and evaluations of activists and non-activists are asymmetrical, which may have (negative) consequences for mobilization for social change.

Политизация экологического дискурса в Архангельской области на примере строительства мусорного полигона около станции Шиес

Экологическая повестка заняла центральное место как в политической, так и в социальной формах протеста в России в 2018–2019 гг. Принятие решения об открытии мусорного полигона около станции Шиес в Архангельской области вызвало не только закономерное недовольство жителей политикой региональных элит, но и укрепило положение экологического протеста по всей России, прокладывая путь дискурсивному и фактическому политическому участию. Более того, кейс мусорного полигона около станции Шиес не является исключением, характеризующим российский контекст. Природа сегодня выступает не только объектом, но и субъектом политики во многих странах. Что позволяет сугубо социальному вопросу о состоянии окружающей среды и ее влиянии на повседневную жизнь людей приобретать черты политического обсуждения, требующего конкретного решения? Цель статьи – определить и показать механизмы политизации экологического дискурса в России на примере ситуации, связанной с открытием мусорного полигона около станции Шиес в Архангельской области. Мы покажем, как определенное политическое решение властей, принятое вне публичного обсуждения и при игнорировании конкурирующих дискурсов, привело к доминантному дискурсивному конструированию экологической проблемы как политической. Эмпирической базой исследования послужили 19 полуструктурированных интервью с жителями Архангельской области. Методологией исследования выступает дискурс-анализ, в основе которого лежит аргументативная традиция. Мы сфокусируемся исключительно на аргументативных конструкциях – ссылках на факты, нормативно-правовые акты, риторических приемах для обоснования мнения, – которые субъекты используют для доказательства правоты своей позиции. Покажем, что политизация дискурса и высокая политическая мобилизация граждан произошли за счет трех основных механизмов, которые сработали одновременно: оценка принятого властями решения как нелегитимного, как несправедливого, а также выделение определенных политических лидеров в качестве ответственных за эту несправедливость.

Globally Visible Environmental Protest: A Cross-national Analysis, 1970–2010

We examine the global rise of environmental protest events reported in major news outlets from 1970 to 2010, based on a new cross-national dataset. The paper addresses conventional arguments regarding resources and political opportunities, but focuses principally on the international dynamics that affect local protest and its visibility. World society theory as well as scholarship on transnational movements and advocacy networks suggests that international organizations and institutions play an important role in bringing resources, opportunities, and global media attention to local movements. We argue that international forces will be especially important in nondemocratic countries. Cross-national quantitative analyses suggest that nations with strong organizational ties to the international community have more protests that get covered in international media, and that the effects of international forces are stronger in less democratic societies.

중국에서 시위는 유효한가: 샤먼 환경시위와 도시 중산층의 역할

중국에서 시위는 유효한가: 샤먼 환경시위와 도시 중산층의 역할

Movimento ambientalista na China contemporânea:

Este artigo busca apresentar uma reconstrução histórica do desenvolvimento do movimento ambientalista, a partir da compreensão da estruturação e funcionamento das ONGs ambientalistas. Apresentamos um breve panorama da questão ambiental na China e das políticas ambientais governamentais. A partir desses elementos é possível refletir sobre o papel das ONGs na contemporaneidade, sua posição de diálogo com o Estado e sociedade, exemplificados a partir dos protestos ambientalistas e da atuação pública em dois casos distintos de construção de hidrelétricas. É observável uma mudança na postura do governo chinês com relação ao movimento ambientalista nas últimas três décadas, evidenciando uma maior incorporação de suas reivindicações, sendo possível considerar as ONGs como um novo ator social ativo na política ambiental chinesa. Utiliza-se a noção de sociedade de risco e governança ambiental multiator como princípio teórico para se analisar o objeto de estudo deste artigo, a partir do uso de fontes primárias e secundárias.

Ramming Speed': The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and the Law of Protest

This paper examines the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society as a radical environmental protest group in its self-appointed role in protecting oceanic life. It first briefly examines the group’s history, its attitude to direct protest, its governing philosophy and its attitudes to violence as a means of achieving its goals. It then provides a history of various direct actions carried out by the group: in particular, it examines the organisation’s ongoing confrontations with the Japanese whaling fleet. The paper goes on to critically evaluate the legal justifications claimed by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society for its actions. In particular it assesses the group’s conduct under various international law of the sea conventions and instruments, including the controversy as to whether its activities constitute vigilantism and/or piracy. Lastly, the paper concludes by asking whether Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s methods have become counterproductive to its stated goals.

Dual mediation and success of environmental protests in China: a qualitative comparative analysis of 10 cases

ABSTRACT Existing studies of protest outcomes have focused on the effects of organizational characteristics, disruptive tactics, and political opportunity structures. However, most studies, especially those situated in Western democracies, fail to adequately account for the paths to successful protests in authoritarian regimes like China because of the structural differences between the two types of regimes. By incorporating insights from studies of protests in China and communication studies, this article extends the political mediation model and argues that the success of protests is shaped by the tripartite relations among protest forcefulness, favorable political contexts, and media exposure. In face of joint occurrence of elite support and media exposure, large size of protest is sufficient, whilst large size and disruptive actions are required when media exposure is present but elite support is absent. This result shows that the effectiveness of protest characteristics is dually mediated by political and media conditions. This study not only enhances our understandings of protest outcomes in China but also brings scholarly dialogue between social movement studies and communication studies so as to enrich the literature of protest outcomes.

Political Use of Twitter in Post-Gezi Environmental Protests

Abstract Twitter has often been associated with recent social movements, particularly in the Middle East region. It was also used widely in Turkey during and after the nationwide Gezi protests of 2013. In this article, I study the political engagement practices on Twitter with a particular focus on the post-Gezi environmental protests, and reflect on how emergent protest ecologies are shaped through the participation of the diverse stakeholders. Based on an analysis of three environmental protests in Yirca, Iztuzu and Cerattepe, I highlight the role of Twitter as a political platform connecting players across protests. Findings indicate that Twitter plays a significant role in expanding protest networks and enabling the congregation of a wide variety of players, such as environmental movement organizations, media, political figures and activists who then help to sustain their resistance movements.

Petrochemical Pollution and the Suppression of Environmental Protest

While research has established how elite actors can work to protect structures that contribute to environmental harm, relatively less is known about the cultural resources that can serve elite interests at the local level. In cases of localized pollution, multiple groups have vested interests in protecting corporate legitimacy. We draw on treadmill of production theory and collective identity to analyze a case of community petrochemical contamination. Specifically, we asked: (1) how elite actors appropriated cultural resources to protect productivity following a legitimization crisis; and (2) how discursive retaliation matters in understanding the pathways to violence when protest threatens an industrial community's economic identity. Our data for this research included in‐depth interviews, newspaper coverage, and archival data. Findings indicate that the corporation, the city, and corporate employees responded to local environmental activism with a discursive campaign that ultimately paved the way for widespread threats and retaliation against the residents. This research highlights the ways in which local proponents of the energy industry can take advantage of cultural resources to suppress challengers to the industry.

Creating Space for Protest and Possibility

This article brings together the ideas of protest and counterculture in a productive engagement. If protest is understood as publicly bearing witness in opposition to something, then countercultures often do this as rejections of dominant cultures that are folded into everyday life in order to create spaces for possible futures. The countercultural experiments undertaken in the region around Nimbin, Australia, are an example of such space creation. Using interviews, presentations, and archival materials collected at a 2013 community conference marking the 40th anniversary of the 1973 Nimbin Aquarius Festival, I will explore these experiments in the context of countercultural protest. The Festival not only gathered together people under the banner of the counterculture, but provided a unique space for gathering around common matters of concern to create an ongoing countercultural community. This community continues to develop practical knowledge regarding sustainable living and innovations in grassroots environmental protest.

“I Just Keep My Mouth Shut”: The Demobilization of Environmental Protest in Central Appalachia

This article investigates why people who take a stand against mining-related pollution sometimes abandon activism before resolving their grievances. Previous studies of this process have attributed demobilization to co-optation, violent repression, legitimation tactics, and lack of identity correspondence between movement participants and environmental justice organizations. To sharpen our understanding of why movement dissolution occurs, I investigate a case of demobilization that was not caused by these factors. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, in-depth interviews, and document analysis conducted in “Shale County,” a coal-producing community in Central Appalachia, I show how coal companies’ subtle, yet continuous, acts of obstruction, non-cooperation, and dissimulation prompted activists to withdraw from protest. My analysis contributes to the environmental sociology and social movements literatures by (1) expanding existing theory to account for an empirical anomaly; (2) explaining the role that subtle, under-the-radar social control tactics play in suppressing environmental movements; and (3) highlighting the social conditions that render these “clandestine kicks” and “invisible elbows” effective. The model of demobilization I develop underscores the way contextual factors moderate the effectivity of industrial counter-protest tactics and foreground the active, conjuncturally specific processes through which demobilization occurs.

Climate change: Whose responsibility?

Climate change: Whose responsibility?

Transformation of Vanadium-Bearing Titanomagnetite Concentrate in Additive-Free Roasting and Alkaline-Pressure Leaching for Extracting Vanadium (V)

With a view to satisfying the requirements of environmental protest and efficient usage of resources, a novel process for efficiently extracting vanadium (V), titanium (Ti), and iron (Fe) from vanadium-bearing titanomagnetite concentrate was developed. In the new process, vanadium is pre-extracted by additive-free roasting under the air atmosphere and alkaline leaching technologies. In this paper, transformation of vanadium-bearing titanomagnetite concentrate in the roasting is investigated based on thermodynamic analyses and experimental discussion. Thermodynamic analyses show that oxidation of V(III) into V(V) would happen in the roasting experiment over the range of 327–1327 °C and vanadium-iron spinel phase (FeV2O4) can be oxidized more easily than magnetite (Fe3O4) when the temperature is higher than 861 °C. Experimental results show that some compounds (V2O5, Fe2Al4Si5O18, and Fe2SiO4) with low melting temperature were obtained by solid reactions at low temperature and melted as a binding phase at elevated temperature. Liquids were generated due to some chemical reactions or phase transformation reaction (Fe2V2O4(s) → Fe2O3(s) + liquid) at elevated temperature. Main phases of Fe2O3 and Fe2TiO5 are connected and sintered with the binding phases of the compounds with low melting temperature or the mixtures with low liquidus temperature. In addition, higher roasting temperature leads to higher vanadium leaching efficiency over the range of 800–1200 °C. However, over-burning would happen at 1250 °C, some of vanadium oxide was wrapped by silicate network, and the conversion of V(III) into V(V) was prevented from occurring. Therefore, the vanadium leaching efficiency decreased from 59.1% (Troa. = 1200 °C) to 57% (Troa. = 1250 °C).

Deconstructing Generations: Concluding Remarks

This concluding article of the special issues summarizes the empirical results presented in the previous contributions within a comparative perspective, with particular attention to locate them within previous research on youth mobilizations. From the theoretical point of view, the articles, based on the research conducted in the context of the CRY_OUT project, have tried to bridge some concepts in youth studies and social movement studies. Using the concept of generations in a critical way, we have in fact aimed at deconstructing it by looking at the meaning given to generations by movement activists, to their self-perception in terms of generational identification, as well as their taste in terms of contentious frames and practices. Empirically, we have addressed, in particular, the mobilization of Millennials in anti-austerity protests on issues such as labor and also women’s and gender rights, antiracism, environmental protests, and alternative cultural and/or recreational initiatives. Focusing on Europe, we have chosen some paradigmatic cases of protests in the United Kingdom, Southern European Italy and Spain, and Eastern European Poland. In light of the theoretical questions presented in the introduction, this article addresses, in turn, the conceptions of generations in movements, the self-assessment by Millennials, as well as some characteristics of their mobilizations in terms of organizational structures, repertories of action, and collective framing.

Learning from Greenpeace: Activist Habitus in a Local Struggle

Author(s): Alam, Meredian; Nilan, Pam; Leahy, Terry | Abstract: This paper traces the onto-genesis of a specific environmental campaign in Indonesia. A highly effective struggle to save the local city forest was instigated by young activists in Bandung who had previously been involved with Greenpeace Indonesia. The data comes from interviews, a focus group and ethnographic fieldwork. The paper illustrates the point that when youth get involved in a highly structured environmental protest movement like Greenpeace, the skills, network resources and confidence they gain there can later be deployed to great advantage in a local conservation campaign. That phenomenon can be understood using the notion of radical habitus derived from the theoretical work of Pierre Bourdieu. Keywords: youth, activism, radical habitus, Greenpeace