Embodying climate justice: An ethnographic inquiry into the resisting choreography of the climate movement Ende Gelände
Selkälä, Henna-Elise (2020)
Selkälä, Henna-Elise
2020
Politiikan tutkimuksen maisteriohjelma - Master's Programme in Politics
Johtamisen ja talouden tiedekunta - Faculty of Management and Business
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Hyväksymispäivämäärä
2020-05-19
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202005135246
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202005135246
Tiivistelmä
This thesis is an ethnographic inquiry into the embodied resistance practices of the climate justice movement Ende Gelände in Germany. By engaging with the actual protesting bodies of the climate justice movement, the thesis examines the possibilities of corporeal political contestation, and ultimately, transformation, in the times of climate turmoil. The actions of Ende Gelände suggest that, at times, our bodies are the only remaining media to bring about political change. While social movements and their role in the global climate governance have received scholarly interest, the corporeal techniques and relations structuring the practice of resistance are worthwhile a more in-depth study. Therefore, I have placed the protesting bodies of the Ende Gelände activists at the centre of the research. Informed by Feminist scholarship of International Relations, I approach resistance in this thesis as an embodied practice that consists of relations, techniques, repetition and improvisation. As the research focuses on the politico-corporeal struggle around climate justice, I have conceptualised the research design as a choreography. I use the notion choreography of resistance to refer to bodies organising through various strategies in order to address the intersecting issues of climate justice. My overarching research question is how does the resisting choreography of Ende Gelände contest the business-as-usual of our political economy driven by the extraction and use of fossil fuels. Consequently, I examine how the choreography of resistance emerges; how it works, and what kind of relationalities it entails; and eventually, what the resisting choreography of Ende Gelände does. Methodologically, I have applied embodied approaches to ethnography in my research and developed a body-based inquiry for the qualitative interviews. I conducted 12 multisensory interviews among the activists of Ende Gelände during the fieldwork in August 2017, in March and October 2018, and in June 2019. For the analysis, I animate the research data by composing impressionistic research portraits from the interviews and the fieldnotes.
The thesis demonstrates that resisting choreography of Ende Gelände is constituted by relations of care, violence and imagination. Moreover, it reflects on the corporeal consequences of climate turmoil in the individual activists and analyses the embodied repercussions of resistance in them. In the analysis, I pay attention to what these resisting practices do on micro, collective and structural layers of the choreography. The thesis argues that the resisting choreography exposes the sites of climate destruction, critically intervenes in the material and symbolic infrastructure of the fossil fuel-based political economy, and performatively fuels the political imagination of what is possible. The thesis discusses how the Ende Gelände climate activists present their claim for climate justice corporeally by crossing the border of legality. Moreover, the thesis elaborates on how the actions of Ende Gelände bridge the gap between the Paris Climate Agreement and political inaction through the practice of political disobedience. In addition, the thesis examines how the resisting choreography of Ende Gelände transcends the act of protest through intentional practices of care, inclusive communication, and basis-democratic relations where vulnerability is not antithetical of resistance, but rather constitutive of it. Drawing from the theories of embodied care and interconnectedness, the thesis elaborates on how the resisting choreography of Ende Gelände informs the changing roles of human agency and transversal dissent. The international politics of climate take ultimately place in-between bodies and on the human skin through resistance, violence and care. In addition to disrupting the business-as-usual of climate inaction, the resisting choreography of Ende Gelände is at its best when cultivating practices of interdependence, mutual support and recognition of one’s own vulnerability. Furthermore, the caring knowledge embodied and transmitted through the resistance fosters new ways of organising and being together as citizens of a political community. This can support us in re-imagining why the struggle for climate justice is worthwhile.
The thesis demonstrates that resisting choreography of Ende Gelände is constituted by relations of care, violence and imagination. Moreover, it reflects on the corporeal consequences of climate turmoil in the individual activists and analyses the embodied repercussions of resistance in them. In the analysis, I pay attention to what these resisting practices do on micro, collective and structural layers of the choreography. The thesis argues that the resisting choreography exposes the sites of climate destruction, critically intervenes in the material and symbolic infrastructure of the fossil fuel-based political economy, and performatively fuels the political imagination of what is possible. The thesis discusses how the Ende Gelände climate activists present their claim for climate justice corporeally by crossing the border of legality. Moreover, the thesis elaborates on how the actions of Ende Gelände bridge the gap between the Paris Climate Agreement and political inaction through the practice of political disobedience. In addition, the thesis examines how the resisting choreography of Ende Gelände transcends the act of protest through intentional practices of care, inclusive communication, and basis-democratic relations where vulnerability is not antithetical of resistance, but rather constitutive of it. Drawing from the theories of embodied care and interconnectedness, the thesis elaborates on how the resisting choreography of Ende Gelände informs the changing roles of human agency and transversal dissent. The international politics of climate take ultimately place in-between bodies and on the human skin through resistance, violence and care. In addition to disrupting the business-as-usual of climate inaction, the resisting choreography of Ende Gelände is at its best when cultivating practices of interdependence, mutual support and recognition of one’s own vulnerability. Furthermore, the caring knowledge embodied and transmitted through the resistance fosters new ways of organising and being together as citizens of a political community. This can support us in re-imagining why the struggle for climate justice is worthwhile.