e-space
Manchester Metropolitan University's Research Repository

    “We Are Radical In Our Kindness”: The Political Socialisation, Motivations, Demands and Protest Actions of Young Environmental Activists in Britain

    Pickard, Sarah, Bowman, Benjamin ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2866-1612 and Arya, Dena (2020) “We Are Radical In Our Kindness”: The Political Socialisation, Motivations, Demands and Protest Actions of Young Environmental Activists in Britain. Youth and Globalization, 2 (2). pp. 251-280.

    [img]
    Preview
    Accepted Version
    Download (351kB) | Preview

    Abstract

    <jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>The year 2018 was a watershed in environmental activism, especially regarding young activists. Greta Thunberg started her School Strikes for Climate and the environmental movement Extinction Rebellion was founded. This article deals with young people’s involvement in these two global movements. It draws on 60 semi-structured interviews carried out with young environmental activists before, during and after protest actions under the auspices of the climate strikes and/or Extinction Rebellion in five British locations.</jats:p> <jats:p>The period of the political socialisation of this young generation is outlined and how it contributes to young people becoming environmental activists. The article then identifies the “radical” demands made by young environmental activists and their “radical” repertoire of contention in relation to their perceptions of the “radical” compared to hegemonic definitions.</jats:p> <jats:p>The interviews show that these young environmentalists are part of a generation of activists this is committed to obtaining significant change from powerholders through the use of deliberately non-violent direct action that challenges academic perceptions of radical repertoires of contention.</jats:p>

    Impact and Reach

    Statistics

    Activity Overview
    6 month trend
    934Downloads
    6 month trend
    205Hits

    Additional statistics for this dataset are available via IRStats2.

    Altmetric

    Repository staff only

    Edit record Edit record