Challenging Extractive Industries

Abstract

Drawing from literature on social movements, we investigate how movements in uncertain political contexts can challenge extractive and natural resource–intensive industries such as coal companies. Scholars have analyzed how citizens in Western democracies can confront powerful industries, yet comparatively little research has focused on challenges to coal elites in politically unstable settings. We focus on the community of Libkovice, Czech Republic, to examine how anticoal activists strategically protested against a coal industry in the midst of a transition from state control to corporate ownership. The data for this research were collected between 2000 and 2014, including in-depth interviews, documentary and raw organizational film footage, and archival materials. Findings reveal that ambiguous targets and uncertain political contexts can significantly influence how activists develop tactical repertoires. We conclude by discussing the implications of this research for future work on social movements generally and citizen efforts to challenge powerful extractive industries.

Peri-Urbanism in Globalizing India: A Study of Pollution, Health and Community Awareness

“…This failure to demonstrate a significant burden of disease goes partway to explaining why residents believe that pollution is causing them harm, but have not done anything about it. It is, in keeping with recent literature of other cases of environmental pollution, a context in which the damage to the environment has been undramatic and gradual [20], and in which evaluating the extent of the risk, pinpointing responsibility and allocating blame remains unclear, difficult, and ambiguous [18,19]. This ambiguity in identifying who to target is also a consequence of the way political engagement in Karhera has waned over the years.…”

“…This recent research has explored the factors which constrain mobilization, and in doing so, have shown that this is not simply a result of the well-known diversionary tactics used by the state and political and economic elites (such as media control, limiting citizen participation, emphasizing the economic benefits; discrediting scientific evidence of harm and health, casting blame on potential sources of contamination, and bullying, ostracizing, and discrediting activists) to forestall resistance [18]. Adams and Shriver [19] show, for example, how protests against coal mining in Czechoslovakia struggle to direct their activism as economic and political flux create a situation where the targets are vague and ambiguous. Auyero and Swinstun [20] explore the “slow violence” perpetrated by petrochemical companies in an Argentinian Shantytown, where the environmental damage is neither dramatic nor visible.…”