Resumen de The effectiveness of extinction rebellion’s “regenerative cultures” for a just ecological transformation: socio-ecological practices and prefiguration
The dominant framework for combating global warming, defined by the IPCC’s scientific communications and the development of new technologies and market-oriented solutions within the decisionmaking process of the Conferences of the Parties (COP), was found to be ineffective, resulting in a depoliticization of the climate crisis and the maintenance of the status quo. This “ecological transition from above”, attributable to the principles of the green economy, is opposed by climate movements, such as Fridays For Future (FFF) and Extinction Rebellion (XR).
These collective subjects promote an “ecological transition from below”, oriented towards climate justice, which implies both the consideration of social inequalities linked to climate change and the intersectional dimension of social struggles, including workers’, anti-racist and feminist issues (Imperatore and Leonardi, 2023).
Recognizing the fact that we live in a harmful system to both people and the natural world, Extinction Rebellion’s activists encourage the implementation of socio-ecological practices linked to “regenerative cultures”, which the purpose to create a healthy, resilient and regenerative community, in which people should be committed to changing the system by starting with themselves, others and the environment (XR Italy website). This paper aims to study in dept Extinction Rebellion’s regenerative cultures and how this example of prefigurative politics, or prefiguration, (Boggs, 1997; Shoorsberg, 2023) can be considered “effectiveness” (Bosi, Giugni and Uba, 2016), trying to answer to one of the five prefiguration research challenges launched by Mygind du Plessis and Husted (2022). Starting with the hypothesis that the embodiment of regenerative cultures for XR’s activists could have consequences for participants themselves, for the group and for actors outside the movement, I propose the articulation of three categories of effectiveness, referring to the three consequences just indicated: personal-biographical;
on the group (or movement); towards external actors.
The empirical basis of the research work concerns 25 semi-structured interviews to Extinction Rebellion’s activists and some direct observation experiences in their assemblies and mobilizations, on the occasion, for example, of the Climate Social Camp in Turin (July 2022) and the Word Congress for Climate Justice in Milan (October 2023).
