Political Generations and the Italian Environmental Movement(s): Innovative Youth Activism and the Permanence of Collective Actors

Abstract

During recent years, Italian social movements have experienced a period of crisis, in part due to diffuse antipolitical feelings and latent social conflict. However, environmental issues and especially territorial mobilizations remain relevant, due to the appearance of new contentious actors and to the permanence of long-standing organizations and important local grassroots campaigns. Based on 19 semistructured interviews with activists belonging to informal groups and formal associations, this article discusses the role of age and generations within the variegated Italian environmental archipelago, in which organizational and collective aspects prove to currently have a relevant role. Indeed, age does not represent an important fracture, representing a partial anomaly if confronted with the other case studies discussed in this special issue. The only diversities between cohorts are related to the forms of action preferred and (eventually) adopted, while the common perception of job precariousness among young activists is not translated into a single frame and common path of resistance. More than a Millennials’ identity, it is rather appropriate to speak of various and divergent political generations: individuals belonging to different cohorts share some ideologies and visions of the world, especially related to territorial belongings or to specific ways of looking at environmental issues. Also for this reason, a final comparison between contemporary young activists and those of previous generations is proposed to address the generation(s) in movement(s) in a dynamic perspective.

Youth Activism for Climate on and Beyond Social media: Insights from FridaysForFuture-Rome

“…Contrary to current studies on Italian environmental activism (Bertuzzi 2018), we found that FFF-activists believe climate activism to be their own fight. They accentuate the understanding of climate change as a generational issue, usually described as particularly affecting teenagers and young adults, as its consequences will be more severe in their future.…”

#fighteverycrisis: Pandemic Shifts in Fridays for Future’s Protest Communication Frames

“…A growing number of studies has also addressed youth environmental activism (Gallay et al, 2016;O'Brien et al, 2018). While youth-driven discourses coalesce around environmental justice, scholars have commented on the intersectional (Terriquez et al, 2018) as well as anti-capitalist (Bertuzzi, 2019) collective action frames within contemporary environmental youth movements. In the spirit of cross-issue activism and transnationalization, the discourses of youth environmental activism also resonate with other social justice collectives, including anti-racist (Bullard, 1993), LGBTQ or labor rights (Almeida, 2019) agendas.…”

Normalising the ‘alter-Europe’ or going beyond this Europe? Italian environmental movements’ perspectives on Europe, democracy and the ecological crisis

“…The analysis is based on 19 semi-structured interviews with formal or charismatic leaders of some relevant groups and associations in Italy. These range from traditional ENGOs (national ones or Italian branches of international ones) to LULU movements (della Porta et al, 2019;della Porta & Piazza, 2008), networks of independent alternative farmers and political ecology groups (Bertuzzi, 2019a). As anticipated, I argue that this classic contraposition between reformist and radical approaches translates into an even broader distinction between green democracy and ecological democracy.…”

“…At the same time, it remains an important component of formal ENGOs, which represents an updated version of environmental reformism/conservationism. Additionally, radical anti-capitalist groups, often related to local agriculture and independent farms, have carried out their activities on a more political/cultural level (Bertuzzi, 2019a). Along with these different attitudes, new forms of activism are developing in Italy as well.…”