Finding transformative potential in the cracks? The ambiguities of urban environmental activism in a neoliberal city

ABSTRACT

This article analyses a unique case of local environmental activism in order to think through the puzzle of how to interpret the transformative potential of the forms of small-scale collective action that have recently emerged in neoliberal cities of the Global North. In response to the call by J.K. Gibson-Graham and others for research that is less driven by abstract theory and more attuned to context and ambivalent possibilities, I present the findings of research co-produced with Upping It, a small activist group that uses innovative tactics to clean, green and rehabilitate stigmatized neighbourhoods in Moss Side, Manchester. By enacting forms of interstitial politics, Upping It makes a tangible difference in the lives of ordinary people and creates conditions necessary for politicization, while also participating in unfair and unsustainable local systems. Their story offers rich material for considering the strengths and limitations of two theoretical framings that appear to dominate the literature on micro-political movements: the post-political and new environmentalism framings. These frames, and the criticisms that have been made about them, help to identify two key insights from Upping It that are useful for better capturing the ambiguities and tensions of their kind of struggle in the current conjuncture. Firstly, we can see the importance of including justice-oriented activisms, which in this case might be seen as a form of defensive everyday environmentalism, in the emerging picture of new urban movements. Secondly, Upping It highlights the value of finding modest transformative potential in the cracks and on the margins of urban politics.

KEYWORDS:

• Everyday activism
• environmentalism
• post-politics
• interstitial politics
• transformative change
• situated research

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Upping It activists and all other collaborator-participants in my study for their time and insights. I also wish to thank: my colleagues in the Sustainable Consumption Institute (Luke Yates in particular); participants at the ‘Political Participation beyond the Post-democratic Turn’ Conference held in September 2017 at the Institute for Social Change and Sustainability, Vienna University for Economics and Business; Ingolfur Bludorn and Michael Deflorian; and the peer reviewers for their very helpful comments on this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. These debates include the question of whether forms of collective action focussed on everyday life are indeed ‘new’ or ‘movements’ at all. There is a reasonable objection that these types of micro-politics have featured throughout the fifty year history of new social movements and have always been central to efforts to politicize the private sphere, such as by feminists.

2. Schlosberg and deMoor have developed this explanation, using ‘after Copenhagen’ as its short-hand, which they have presented at several conferences attended by this author and which the former elaborates in his 2019 book Sustainable Materialism: Environmental Movements and the Politics of Everyday Life (Oxford University Press)

3. Blühdorn’s post-ecologist condition should not be conflated with the wider scholarship on post-politics. There are some surface similarities but also important differences at a fundamental level. For the purposes of my discussion, the relevant similarity is his theoretical critique of hegemonic neoliberalism and consumer capitalism that leads to scepticism about ‘new, hopeful’ forms of everyday or ‘lifestyle’ environmental politics.

4. An important line of critique is the tendency in this literature to reify and present neoliberalism and the neoliberal city as fixed, monolithic objects.

5. There appears to be a slow temporality in these types of activism that would be interesting to explore in future research.

6. Space constraints do not allow for a discussion of this co-produced research. Details can be found on the Upping It website.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the UK Higher Education Innovation Fund .

Notes on contributors

Sherilyn MacGregor

Sherilyn MacGregor is Reader in Environmental Politics, based in the Department of Politics and Sustainable Consumption Institute at the University of Manchester, UK.