Prelims

Half Title Page

Radical Environmental Resistance

Title Page

Radical Environmental Resistance

Love, Rage and Hope in an Era of Climate and Biodiversity Breakdown

By

Heather Alberro

Nottingham Trent University, UK

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China

Copyright Page

Emerald Publishing Limited

Emerald Publishing, Floor 5, Northspring, 21-23 Wellington Street, Leeds LS1 4DL

First edition 2024

Copyright © 2024 Heather Alberro.

Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-83797-379-8 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-83797-378-1 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-83797-380-4 (Epub)

Dedication

To my dearest family, friends and all terrestrials – human, feathered, with fur and scales – who I'm honoured to share this home with. You are the hope that can dispel the darkest horizons.

Intro

The Cambridge Dictionary defines an ‘insurgent’ as ‘someone fighting against the government in their own country’, and relatedly as a person or groups of people ‘opposing political authority’ (CUPA, 2023). Both of these understandings are closely associated with activists or activism as forms of (sometimes radical) opposition to the status quo, or hegemonic socio-economic and political systems and associated values, norms and behaviours. Socio-ecologically turbulent times are conducive to radical resistance against their perceived driving forces, which can be seen across the political spectrum. For instance, recent and worsening socio-economic downturn, cultural antagonisms and climate-related insecurities have seen the rise of the populist far-right parties and far-right extremism and ecofascistic ideologies surging across Europe, the United States and elsewhere (Georgiadou et al, 2018). However, left-mobilisations for greater equity, diversity, inclusiveness and climate justice have also proliferated in recent years, building on an expansive tradition of labour, anti-slavery, feminist, anti-imperial and ecological social movements, often in allyship with countless indigenous peoples today fighting against the (neo)colonial appropriation and annihilation of their lands and ways of life. Insurgency, in these latter instances, takes the form of a vehement refusal of an exploitative and profoundly unsustainable status quo, of a pervasive logic that sees value only in that which is deemed profitable. But beyond mere negation, these insurgent movements are also a vociferous, unrelenting affirmation of the enduring possibility of other, more sustainable and inclusive worlds. This recalls American activist Grace Lee Boggs' powerful aphorism ‘Another world is necessary, another world is possible, another world is happening’ (Boggs and Kurashige, 2012), which captures the essence and raison d'etre of social movements, from the Suffragettes to Black Lives Matter and Extinction Rebellion. This book offers some brief, critical insights into the latter strands, specifically radical environmental movements, as insurgent possibilities for multispecies-just futures.