Environmentalism Unbound: Reconnecting and Re-Envisioning Movements for Change

Abstract

Disputes over environmental discourse have generated divergent pathways and discordant messages over the last three decades. An examination of them becomes a study of environmentalism's roots. The workplace is shown as a hidden and often discounted arena of debate about what constitutes an environmental issue. The triumph of the productionist and limitless consumption views helped to establish a focus on environmental change as a form of consumer action. Since the 1970s though, new forms of environmental discourse and action—both community- and production-related—have sought to shift the terrain. The possibility of becoming a broader, more socially inclusive movement capable of challenging the very structure and logic of capitalist social order is possible again, including the ability to identify new strategies for action. Overcoming the work/environment divide is perhaps the most contentious question facing the future of the environmental and labor movements. New approaches, including developing a community of interests, revaluing work, and developing an ethic of place (with urban, industrial, and global forms), require that the social and the ecological become joined in the construction of a common vision. When any environmental issue can be seen as socially determined, then environmentalism's great task will be to see itself as a primary agent of social change.