Literature Review

In a pre-registered study, we sought initial evidence for the relationship between pathological narcissistic grandiosity and involvement in environmental activism. This relationship was predicted based on the dark-ego-vehicle principle (DEVP) for which research is currently still rare. Using a socio-demographically diverse US sample (N = 1,145), we not only aimed to conceptually replicate previous findings on the DEVP but also to examine potential moderation. In particular, we expected higher pathological narcissistic grandiosity to be more strongly related to greater engagement in environmental leadership actions than to greater engagement in environmental participatory actions. Results support the validity of the DEVP by showing that higher pathological narcissistic grandiosity was related to greater involvement in environmental activism, even above and beyond relevant covariates (i.e., pathological narcissistic vulnerability, age, and gender). Also, we found positive relationships between involvement in environmental activism and typical correlates of pathological narcissistic grandiosity (i.e., virtue signaling, dominance, and sensation seeking). Contrary to our predictions, we did not find the different aspects of environmental activism (leadership versus participatory actions) to moderate the relationship between pathological narcissistic grandiosity and involvement in environmental activism. These results are discussed in light of the DEVP.

Between 1980 and 2000 a series of disputes and protests erupted across the Pacific Northwest regarding old growth forests and their utilization by the forest industry. Journalists and scholars have often referred to these events as “The War in the Woods”, dissolving a complex matrix of environmental, economic, and political nuances into a binarized conflict of rural loggers vs. urban environmentalists. However, such a framing obscures not only the longer history of worker and labour union environmental activism in the region, but also overlooks the efforts made by woodworkers and old growth preservation advocates to form allegiances as the conflict unfolded. This dissertation traces the shifting relations between labour union organizers and the evolving environmental critiques of the forest industry that emerged on Southern Vancouver Island between 1970 and 1995. It uses multi-archival research, oral histories, and mass media database analysis to show how this relationship shifted over time from a relatively harmonious cooperation over pollution issues in the 1970s to an escalation of tensions with the outbreak of preservationist campaigns in the Carmanah and Walbran Valleys in the 1980s and 1990s. These events are framed and contextualized by the rise of Indigenous sovereignty movements and by the impact of neoliberal industry restructuring on woodworker communities during this period. However, by highlighting the collaborative alliances made by union activists in the International Woodworkers of America and both radical and mainstream eco-activists even as the conflict unfolded, the dissertation questions the socio-political divisions taken for granted by both contemporary and historical representations of the period. It thus argues that while differences certainly existed between the environmental sensibilities of woodworkers and old growth activists, the excesses of the conflict were constructed and sensationalized by both forest industry representatives and journalists in the mainstream media. The methods and findings of this study have significance for both understanding British Columbian and Pacific Northwest history, but also for understanding the mechanisms underpinning both the successful and unsuccessful formation of social movement alliances.

Activism is all around us, and for many causes, has never been more needed. Perhaps this is particularly true of environmental activism as we face the stark reality of the global crises affecting our natural world, and come to increasingly experience the climate emergency. Amid the cacophony of activists’ voices on the environment, we offer a perspective on a quieter – and yet no less profound and important – form of activism that we find in the literary works of the 19th century American philosopher and essayist, Henry David Thoreau, and the 20th century Scottish modernist novelist and poet, Anna [Nan] Shepherd. In this new volume which systematically brings together the work of these writers for the first time, we propose that their work constitutes a form of poetic environmental activism. Through lives spent in nature (walking the forests around Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts, and in the Cairngorm Mountains in Scotland), both writers document the natural world in its beauty, complexity, and richness. This poetic documentation, characterised by advocating, and accounting for, the world around them, calls our attention back to the natural world on which we so rely, but from which we have become increasingly disconnected. Poetic environmental activism is a different form of rallying call: one that is replete with rich possibilities for education. It calls for our learning care-ful attitudes towards our environment; it re-engages and re-connects us with the urgency of action needed in response to changes to our natural world, and it offers a new way of reading Thoreau and Shepherd’s work as exemplary texts for our time.

Global climate and environmental protests are a widespread movement that aims to draw attention to the urgent need for action on climate change and environmental issues. The movement has gained momentum in recent years as people worldwide have become increasingly aware of the devastating effects of climate change, such as rising sea levels, more frequent and severe natural disasters, and loss of biodiversity. This paper is theoretically grounded on social movement theory which navigated through several climate protests witnessed in recent times, particularly in sub-Sahara Africa. More than 7 million young people gather in cities throughout the globe in protest of the lack of action by world leaders to stop the severe effects of climate change and its accelerating rate. Greta Thunberg, a Swedish climate activist, and others call on students to leave their classes on Fridays to protest the unending climate crises to pressure world leaders to act. These campaigns have led to growing environmental activism as more young people are becoming aware of the devastating impact of climate change on their daily lives. It was discovered that; Students have been actively involved in several climate protests defying the institution's authorities to protest for a change in the global conversation amid a series of rhetoric and indecision from world leaders. The paper has unearthed that climate activism has yielded positive outcomes, bringing transformation into global discourse in pursuit of strategic measures to address climate and environmental crises.

This chapter showcases Leaders for Environmental Activism Reclaiming Their Health (Leaders4EARTH)‘s Environmental Justice Youth Leadership Academy (EJYLA) within the Salinas Valley, an agricultural region in which low-income migrant farmworker families experience disproportionate levels of environmental harm, from pesticide drift to siting of waste facilities. Not only is the EJYLA a space for students to share their experiences of environmental harm, but they are also a way for dreams, hopes, and desires to be re-imagined around the topic of environmental sustainability. This chapter discusses the development and implementation of the leadership academy and its implications for environmental justice education, community health and well-being, and participatory epistemologies.

This exploratory paper addresses the relationship of science journalism, science communication, environmental activism, and social movements. It draws on data from Latin America, exploring how journalists and activists use science communication as a tool for telling stories about environmental conflicts that frequently turn violent (more than 1600 land and environmental activists lost their lives between 2002 and 2020 in Latin America, more than three times that of all other regions of the world combined). The main goal of the paper is to understand how scientific storytelling by NGOs helps them present their points of view for journalists and to influence public opinion. Our data is drawn from the formal reports of four NGOs and from semi-structured interviews with representatives from each NGO’s staff about their use of science communication. Our analysis suggests that Latin American NGOs use science communication tools such as scientific storytelling and scientific explanation to support journalists and to communicate with broad publics about complex phenomena such as socio-environmental conflicts, contributing to efforts to reduce the alarming amount of violence in the region.

Social psychological research on environmental collective action often overlooks the facilitating or hindering impact of a country's context. Governments' institutional attitudes toward environmental issues may have crucial roles in mobilizing environmental activism. To explore how individual and contextual factors interplay for engagement in environmental collective action, we conducted multilevel modelling using data from 12 countries (n = 18,746). While environmental collective action was predicted by higher environmental concern and higher environmental efficacy beliefs, the strength of these relationships was moderated by macro-level contextual variables related to political governance. In countries with more effective environmental policies, the impact of both environmental concern and environmental efficacy beliefs on collective action were much stronger than in the countries with inadequate environmental governance. Moreover, our findings show that environmental concern is less likely to translate into environmental collective action in repressive countries. Findings are discussed within perspectives on community resilience, identity, empowerment, and repression.

Ecuador is so far the only country that explicitly guarantees rights of nature (RoN) on a constitutional level. The country’s 2008 constitution also clearly refers to indigenous thinking by invoking the principle of sumak kawsay and equating nature with Pachamama. Nevertheless, it is arguable whether rights of nature reflect Andean or Amazonian indigenous thinking. On the one hand, it can be argued that several indigenous groups see nature as a living, animate entity, and they even refer to it as a person. On the other hand, some scholars see a contradiction between RoN and Andean indigenous thinking, since the latter focuses on relationships rather than subjects. Western legal cultures are criticized for focusing on rights, and therefore provoking a confrontation between different personal rights, which ultimately causes disharmony in society. This chapter argues that taking indigenous thinking seriously can be very fruitful for the RoN debate. It elaborates its thesis in three steps. Firstly, it argues by using the concept of hybridity for taking indigenous thinking seriously in order to understand Ecuadorian rights of nature and unfold their transformative character. Secondly, it tries to present some core elements of Andean indigenous thinking concerning Pachamama and what we would call human–nature relations. To conclude, it will interpret RoN granted by the Ecuadorian constitution by considering their indigenous background as well as their postcolonial hybridity and demonstrate the comprehension of RoN might be enhanced by seeing legal personality and (subjective) rights from a non-western angle.

This paper provides a quantitative approach to assessing whether the subjective wellbeing (SWB) of Ecuadorian people is dependent on income and employment or on more distinctive features relating to Buen Vivir ethos. The latter are reflected in the indigenous Buen Vivir ideology, based mainly on relations with the community, the environment and food sovereignty. The empirical analysis shows that both Buen Vivir features and factors such as income and unemployment status are significant in the models explaining SWB. Accordingly, economic policies should take into account the Buen Vivir ethos, that seems to be important for the SWB of the Ecuadorian people. This supports the conservationist political position, which focuses on protecting the environment and people's traditional livelihoods, rather than the extractive view, which regards people's welfare as merely dependent on income.

Subjective wellbeing, economic policies, environmental protection, community, food sovereignty, Buen Vivir This post discusses a recent article published in Ecological Economics that provides a quantitative approach to assessing whether the subjective wellbeing (SWB) of Ecuadorian people is dependent on income and employment or on more distinctive features relating to Buen Vivir ethos. The latter are reflected in the indigenous Buen Vivir ideology, based mainly on relations with the community, the environment and food sovereignty. The empirical analysis shows that both Buen Vivir features and factors such as income and unemployment status are significant in the models explaining SWB. Accordingly, economic policies should take into account the Buen Vivir ethos, that seems to be important for the SWB of the Ecuadorian people. This supports the conservationist political position, which focuses on protecting the environment and people's traditional livelihoods, rather than the extractive view, which regards people's welfare as merely dependent on income.

How does the population of a small Ecuadorian province influence the development strategies pursued nationally and consequently push the global conversation toward an alternative model of sustainable development? This article explores watershed management reform in Tungurahua, Ecuador, to analyze how local communities challenged the dominant international model of sustainable development and drew on indigenous norms to offer an alternative. These communities resisted proposals by a transnational network advocating watershed management reforms that coupled conservation with markets for ecosystem services. Community members, however, did not reject the idea of reforming watershed management, and they negotiated with transnational advocates to create an alternative program rooted in indigenous norms. Tungurahua’s indigenous communities labeled their effort Mushuk Yuyay (Quichua for “new ideas”) to emphasize their departure from the development approach favored internationally. Their approach sought to realize the Quichua concept sumak kawsay (buen vivir in Spanish or wellbeing in English), which refers to living in harmony with nature, rather than dominating nature or removing human presence through conservation. In this study of Tungurahua’s watershed management reform, we show how the emerging ideal of sumak kawsay was institutionalized and put into practice

In this article, we trace the avatars of the official concept of Buen Vivir (Good Living), and its understanding and translation as Sumak Kausay in the new Constitution of Ecuador, where it was converted from a subaltern concept that emerged in the 1990s to the country’s trademark. Our main hypothesis is that although Buen Vivir may be described as a social phenomenon in some specific social contexts (such as among Amazonian Sarayaku indigenous communities), it mostly represents an invented tradition. As a subordinate hypothesis, we argue that Buen Vivir, which originally appeared at the margins of the State and political power, later became an empty signifier, allowing for its instrumentalization and co-optation by the Citizens’ Revolution and generating an opening for future prospects in the way of operationalization and internationalization that converged with efforts to promote alternative measures and notions of development to the GDP.