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Abstract
Using the ‘Fridays for Future’ movement in Russia as a case study, this article asks how ‘civil’ society movements ‘avoid politics’ under growing authoritarianism when dealing with ‘politics’ becomes unavoidable. While activists refrain from voicing ‘political’ demands to avoid repression by the regime, they come to understand that their goals are unachievable unless they address broader ‘political’ issues. Based on an analysis of in-depth interviews with climate activists, we identify three frames of ‘avoiding politics’. Each frame relates climate change with broader political issues in a specific way.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 See also Eliasoph (Citation1998).
2 For a broad discussion on the definition, see Lichterman and Eliasoph (Citation2014).
3 For example, Eliasoph (Citation1997, Citation1998), Alyukov et al. (Citation2015), Malafaia et al. (Citation2018).
4 The numbers are provided by the Russian independent civil rights project, OVD-Info: ‘Ot Kaliningrada do Vladivostoka: ne menee 1720 chelovek zaderzhali po vsei Rossii 12 iyunya’, Ovd.info, 13 June 2017, available at: https://ovdinfo.org/news/2017/06/13/ot-kaliningrada-do-vladivostoka-ne-menee-1720-chelovek-zaderzhali-po-vsey-rossii-12, accessed 24 June 2023; ‘Spisok zaderzhannykh na aktsii v podderzhku Alekseya Navalnogo 23 yanvarya 2021 goda’, Ovd.info, 21 January 2021, available at: https://ovdinfo.org/news/2021/01/23/spisok-zaderzhannyh-na-akciyah-v-podderzhku-alekseya-navalnogo-23-yanvarya-2021-goda, accessed 24 June 2023.
5 The informants, three men and 22 women, came from 11 Russian cities: St Petersburg (five), Moscow (four), Arkhangel’sk (three), Murmansk (two), Sochi (two), Nizhny Novgorod (two), Kaliningrad (two), Vladivostok (two), Penza (one), Omsk (one) and Irkutsk (one). Interestingly, the gender imbalance of the interview sample is reflective of the movement as a whole. Eight interviews in Moscow and St Petersburg were conducted in places chosen by the informants and 16 interviews were undertaken via Zoom. The interviews lasted from 50 minutes to 2.5 hours. All interviewees were informed about the content and goals of the project and signed an informed consent form. Personal information was anonymised or removed from the transcripts. Interviews are quoted using pseudonyms, with gender and age as background information. All other information, including home cities, has been omitted to protect the interviewees.
6 See Tavory and Timmermans (Citation2014).
7 As far as there is no written history of Russian ‘Fridays for Future’ movement, this section is written based on information provided to the research by the FFF members in interviews.
8 As stated in the description of the movement in all their social media, see for example, Telegram, available at: https://t.me/climatestrike, accessed 22 April 2024.
9 Although the fact that the more established participants left the movement rather than kicking out the newcomers may seem strange, it is not taking into account the typical format of activity within leftwing groups. Activists in these groups occasionally engage in promoting various agendas that align with their broad understanding of leftwing politics, such as the climate change agenda. However, they are more committed to leftwing (anarchist, Marxist and so forth) ideas than to these particular agendas. Thus, when the majority of newcomers started to insist on the non-ideological character of the movement, the leftwing activists preferred to return to their activities within their own leftwing movement rather than to fight for politicising the climate agenda, which was not that crucial for them.
10 Interview with David, 26, Moscow, 9 September 2020.
11 Interview with Svetlana, 17, Skype, 30 September 2020.
12 Interview with Yana, 25, Zoom, 10 April 2021.
13 Interview with Ekaterina, 25, Moscow, 10 April 2021.
14 Interview with Liza, 29, Zoom, 21 February 2021.
15 Follow-up interview with David, 26, Moscow, 8 April 2021.
16 Interview with Margarita, 29, Zoom, 19 February 2021.
17 See also Eliasoph (Citation1998).
18 Interview with David, 26, Moscow, 9 September 2020.
19 Follow-up interview with David, 26, Moscow, 8 April 2021.
20 Interview with Lusya, 21, Telegram (videocall), 19 February 2021.
21 Interview with Olga, 23, Moscow, 10 April 2021.
22 Interview with Nastya, 16, Zoom, 6 September 2020.
23 Interview with Nastya, 16, Zoom, 6 September 2020.
24 On distrust of politicians in Russian society, see Eliasoph and Clément (Citation2020).
25 Interview with Margarita, 29, Zoom, 19 February 2021.
26 Interview with Yana, 25, Zoom, 10 April 2021.
27 Interview with Yana, 25, Zoom, 10 April 2021.
28 Interview with Vera, 29, Zoom, 21 March 2021.
29 Interview with Oksana, 25, St Petersburg, 18 March 2021.
30 Interview with Lika, 26, Zoom, 26 March 2021.
31 Interview with Roman, 21, St Petersburg, 5 September 2020.
32 Interview with Oksana, 25, St Petersburg, 18 March 2021. The Russian expression, ‘Give us a person, we’ll find the law’ is equivalent to the English phrase, ‘Dig hard enough, and you can find dirt on anyone’.
33 Interview with Angelina, 16, St Petersburg, 30 September 2020. ‘Limonovites’ is a common term for people who were members of the National Bolshevik Party (Natsional-Bolshevistskaya Partiya) (1993–2010) created by the Russian writer Eduard Limonov, and who continued to adhere to NBP ideology in their subsequent activism after the party was disbanded because it was deemed to be an extremist organisation.
34 Fieldnotes by Irina Kozlova, climate rally, St Petersburg, 24 May 2019.
35 Interview with Roman, 21, St Petersburg, 5 September 2020; interview with Natalia, 32, Zoom, 19 January 2021.
36 See the post on the Russian FFF Instagram account, 24 February 2022, available at: https://www.instagram.com/p/CaWveMdtrd0/?igsh=eWxxMGh0ZHZkN2Nj, accessed 26 April 2024.
37 See the post on the Russian FFF Instagram account, 17 March 2022, available at: https://www.instagram.com/p/CbNh80utgh1/?igsh=a3R6NjhreXVob2U5, accessed 26 April 2024.
Additional information
Funding
Notes on contributors
Svetlana Erpyleva
Svetlana Erpyleva, Research Centre for East European Studies, University of Bremen, Public Sociology Laboratory, Klagenfurter Straße 8, D-28359 Bremen, Germany. Email: [email protected]
Eeva Luhtakallio
Eeva Luhtakallio, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Helsinki, PL 18 (Unioninkatu 35), 00014, Finland. Email: [email protected]