Potencijali i prepreke za transnacionalizaciju suvremenih ekoloških borbi u Srbiji

Abstract

Considering the growing tendency of contemporary environmental movements from the Global North to internationalise their struggles, in this paper we try to explore the potentials and obstacles of recent environmental initiatives in Serbia -the protests against small hydropower plants and struggles against the exploitation of lithium -to scale-up from the local to national and transnational level. Focusing on the discursive framing of these initiatives based on the analysis of the digital content created and shared by environmental organisations and activists on social media, we investigate to what extent eco-nationalism represents an incentive or a barrier for the creation of transnational alliances. We also explore the willingness of this movement's advocates to participate in organised collective actions addressing their grievances to international institutions, and especially to the European Union. We interpret the emergence of eco-nationalism as related to the environmentalism of the poor/dispossessed, which arises as a reaction to the commodification of natural resources, advancing neoliberal policies and neoextractivism on the (semi-)periphery of the world capitalist system.