Climate change activism as counter-hegemony? A critical discourse analysis of (self) representations of radical environmental organizations across cultures.

Katarzyna Molek-Kozakowska – University of Opole, Poland

Presentation Slides

Environmental activism as counter-hegemony? A critical discourse analysis of (self) representations of radical environmental organizations across cultures – Full Article

Keywords

climate activism, radical social movements, discourse, self-representation

Abstract

NGOs and charity organizations, including those devoted to environmental activism, are said to be embedded in the social and cultural structure of capitalist democracies (Fletcher, 2010). They help overcome shortages produced by neoliberal arrangements, thus mitigating dramatic tensions, injustices and inequalities produced by the consumerism-driven economic system. In turn, they allow some donors to relieve guilt connected with consumption and depletion of natural resources (Krause, 2014). Charities’ values are tightly intertwined with the fabrics of civic societies and, due to cultural capital and ethical priorities, rarely questioned and critiqued. Why would anyone condemn Greenpeace’s anti-war stance, PETA’s messages to eliminate violence to animals or Costa Foundation’s projects to build schools in the coffee-producing countries? Save the most egregious cases of greenwashing done as part of corporate social responsibility actions of the largest polluters, few critics would undermine the mission and actions of environmental organizations (Klein, 2014). And yet at the time when anthropogenic climate change has been shown to threaten the lifestyles sustained by neoliberal arrangements, are environmental organizations capable of challenging the foundations of the economic, social and cultural system that threatens to destroy the planetary balance? In view of the failures of mainstream environmental activism, should established environmental organizations be dismissed and more outspoken movements, such as US’s Deep Green Resistance, UK’s Extinction Rebellion, or Poland’s Pracownia na rzecz wszystkich istot, embraced as the solution? Such radical movements are united by the philosophies of deep ecology (Naess, 1989; Devall and Sessions, 1985), but divided by political constrains on activism and dominant cultural practices of campaigning that lead them to adopting only certain means of activism: not only leaflets and letters, petitions, boycotts, media stunts, sit-ins, policy proposals and independent risk-assessment reports, but also picketing, die-in performances, blockades, lock-ups, supergluing stunts, economic sabotage, or even property damage. As a result, such organizations may be variously represented by mainstream news and elite media as “fighters for a lost cause,” “brainwashed lefties,” “eco-terrorists,” or “dangerous clowns” (Short, 1990). In this study, I follow DeLuca (1999) in claiming that radical environmental activism has counterhegemonic potential because of its discourses facing elite or cultural opposition (as evidenced by the negative labels listed above). Despite the fact that countercultural dimensions of environmental movements in the past are well researched (cf. Zelko, 2013, on Greenpeace), since the advent of online media, the field of environmental communication has witnessed more direct public outreach by environmental groups and social movements that largely bypass news organizations and influence agendas (Shoemaker and Reese, 1996). Multiple channels now exist through which radical environmental movements explain their ideologies, articulate their aims, justify their projects and mobilize the publics. This study offers a critical discourse analysis of online manifestos or “mission statements” of the three abovementioned radical organizations that is focused on the means of their self-representation. I aim to verify to what extent and how these movements position themselves as counterhegemonic. Specifically I look at semiotic resources and media affordances which tend to be applied to promote radical activism as a desirable, even necessary, cultural and social orientation in a climate emergency.In this project I aim to weave together the critical discourse approach to entextualized and mediatized identity constructions with a comparative cultural approach to radical social activism, particularly its legitimizations in different cultural contexts. Given the fact that radical environmental action is often counterhegemonic, it seems interesting to reveal on which identity constructs it is based on to be acceptable to a larger public. The choice of environmentalism, and particularly climate change activism, is particularly pertinent to the situation in which projected consequences of temperature and sea rise become a global, rather than a regional or national threat.

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