Criminalization of environmental protest

While protesters for a fair climate treaty in Copenhagen were detained due to “precautionary reasons”, a march against “looting and contamination” was held in Cordoba at the 11th UAC. When attempting to set off, some of the Argentine citizen assemblies decided to stay behind and not join the demonstration. Firstly because political parties had joined the march, and secondly because there was an organization where some of the members carried sticks and had their faces covered. The two events both connect to ideas about violence and where the limits for civic protest are set. This is sometimes discussed as “criminalization of social protest” – all depending on the ideological belonging of the discussant of course. One camp considers that the criminalization of social protest is a conscious strategy by the State to weaken social movements, by making certain acts illegal, like covering the face or charging individuals for what the collective does, as seen in Copenhagen. This is while the other ideological camp considers that the security of the rest of the citizens is protected when the protesters’ rights are limited. A common practice seems to be to categorize or represent the protesters as “terrorists” or delinquents. This is how a Cordobese newspaper framed the activists who participated in the demonstrations the following day – as eco-terrorists. In extension, the media contributes to the social construction of what is considered as violent acts. This in turn may veil structural inequalities, and even more importantly, contribute to a complete neglect of the real arguments and demands expressed by the protesters. The criminalization of social protest limits the possibilities to participate in the environmental politics, where wide political participation has been emphasized ever since the global policy Agenda 21.

While attempting to settle the disputes at the Assembly meeting the following day, about the participation of people with sticks and faces covered, two kinds of arguments were presented. The first to be articulated was that no participants should have their faces covered in the peaceful marches organized by UAC, since that tends to contribute to more violence. The other opinion concerned the safety of the, mainly very poor and marginalized, members of the organization which had their faces covered to hide their identity from the police. Several stories of how politically active youngsters are documented and later persecuted by the police were expressed. Even if some participants certainly left the meeting with a bitter taste in the mouth due to different interpretations of what symbolizes violence, the assembly managed to increase my understanding of what not only social protest for the environment mean in Argentina, but also what violence can be taken to mean.

Action competence or action paralysis?

Injustice can paralyze. So can knowledge about overwhelming environmental problems that seem beyond cure. With the aim of creating a “participatory” environmental photo project, these issues have been central. I have been guided by the work performed by Ellen Almers (2009) who investigates what she calls action competence. The concept has been developed by Danish pedagogues like Bjarne Bruun Jensen among others. In general, action competence implies a process for engagement to take action. It is ideologically and conceptually related to democracy, empowerment and critical pedagogy. Action competence means “the development of these competencies, understandings and skills that enable students to take critical action” (Grant 1997:1). In environmental contexts this kind of pedagogy is often connected to education for sustainable development.

The opposite of action competence is action paralysis. What good would it do the kids who participate in the workshops by ph15 if they “only” learn about what environmental problems which exist? It may seem as if the barriers to take action, in the sense of social, political and economic structures, are insuperable in their barrio, what I called “ecological action space” in my dissertation. My attempt to circumvent these problems has been to contribute with tasks that help the participants increase their capacity to analyze other’s representations of the environment, discuss and reflect on whose responsibility the environment is, and to discuss and share ideas on what can be done to find ways to act. As have been pointed out time and again before, knowledge about what can be done for the environment has to be translated to practical and feasible activities that yet don’t individualize the responsibility and neglect the larger political context within which the individuals act. To find a formula for how this can be done is most likely any environmental politicians’ or environmental activists’ dream.

An interesting point of reference in the work by Almers is that she (in an interview) emphasizes that she believes that it is more fundamental that the students (through the formal schooling) get less stories of misery, and more examples for how to discuss solutions to the problems. This prepares them for action competence rather than helplessness and action paralysis. In ph15 we discussed the role of images of misery and suggestions for action through a set of governmental posters. The group concluded that environmental catastrophies and misery had a major impact than suggestions for action, since the later didn’t connect to what problems that could be avoided.

References:
Almers, Ellen (2009) Handlingskompetens för hållbar utveckling: Tre berättelser om vägen dit. Diss. Högskolan i Jönköping.
Grant, Col (1997) ”Action Competence - Factors which promote and constrain”. Background Paper for International Research Conference in Environmental Education at Christchurch.