A SEMINAR SERIES OF THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE

Thursday 15 June 2023 at 4.00-6.00pm (BST)

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An Ethnography of Global Environmentalism:
Becoming Friends of the Earth 

The Royal Anthropological Institute is pleased to present ‘Reviewer meets Reviewed’, a discussion between author Dr Caroline Gatt (University of Graz) and reviewer Professor Stewart Barr (University of Exeter).

Based on nine years of research, this is the first book to offer an in-depth ethnographic study of a transnational environmentalist federation and of activists themselves. The book presents an account of the daily life and the ethical strivings of environmental activist members of Friends of the Earth International (FoEI), exploring how a transnational federation is constituted and maintained, and how different people strive to work together in their hope of contributing to the creation of "a better future for the globe." In the context of FoEI, a great diversity of environmentalisms from around the world are negotiated, discussed and evolve in relation to the experiences of the different cultures, ecosystems and human situations that the activists bring with them to the federation. Key to the global scope of this project is the analysis of FoEI experiments in models for intercultural and inclusive decision-making. The provisional results of FoEI’s ongoing experiments in this area offer a glimpse of how different notions of the environment, and being an environmentalist, can come to work together without subsuming alterity.

The book is published by Routledge. More info here.

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The review

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 27 (4) December 2021, pp1029-1030

Stewart Barr 

This detailed and intellectually rigorous text is the fruit of nine years of study by Caroline Gatt, outlining her ethnographic account of the international environmental movement through a study of Friends of the Earth (FoE) and Friends of the Earth International (FoEI). Gatt begins her book with a reminder that FoE emerged in the late 1960s as a consequence of the conservationist tendencies of the popular Sierra Club in the United States. Central to what would become FOEI was its equal focus on the consequences of environmental degradation and social justice through the lens of transnational impacts and potential solutions through activism.

Gatt's text is an anthropologically positioned account of FoE and FoEI through her work within three settings: FoE Malta, FoE Brazil, and the permanent Secretariat of FoEI, based in Amsterdam. During her fieldwork, she mobilizes different forms of ethnography and describes how different work practices and forms of activism necessitated alternative approaches. What comes through is how Gatt needed to exercise flexibility throughout her work through negotiating human relationships in often hectic settings. Accordingly, her methods ranged from working in FoE offices, attending workshops and exchanging ideas through email, to life history interviews and observation. These methods have enabled Gatt to provide a stimulating account of FoE and FoEI that takes readers on a journey, from an introduction to the organization and the life trajectory of activists to discussions of how the organization functions internationally and the connections between transnational working, local activism, and negotiating with external organizations.

Gatt seeks to address three overarching issues in her book. First, she is concerned with the connections between humans and nonhumans, and takes as her inspiration the writing of Ingold, Latour, and Haraway to formulate an ecological phenomenology. This has several components which she details, but is founded on the idea that all things are ‘in a process of mutual constitution in a field of unfolding relations’ (p. 30). Second, Gatt explores different components of power through symbolism, materiality, personal power, and the agency of nonhumans. For this, she develops a conceptual framework that focuses on fields of forces, vectors, and directions of attention. This becomes particularly useful when analysing her experiences within and across different settings of FoE. Third, Gatt uses her experience in these different settings to explore the experience of working for an environmental organization through different practices, placing emphasis on the ways in which electronic communications are used to negotiate, construct, and debate ideas and policies.

Gatt's text is organized in ten chapters, the first three of which provide intellectual and methodological context. Chapter 1 explores the basis for the ecological phenomenology she constructs, and this is then complemented by her conceptual framework in chapter 2. Chapter 3 provides a highly engaging and rich exploration of the fieldwork methods applied in the research, detailing both her methodological considerations and the specific methods applied. In chapters 4 to 9, a series of vignettes and thick descriptions of different settings, processes, and experiences follows, whilst chapter 10 provides a reflection on the research process and its intellectual implications.

Gatt's book is a highly engaging, immersive, and richly evidenced piece of anthropological writing that holds the reader throughout. It is clearly the result of intense and deeply personal scholarship, as well as a profound engagement with participants, their lives and experiences. The book has a clear narrative and Gatt is able to weave together theory and evidence seamlessly through description, vignette, illustration, and quotation. What is perhaps most impressive is the volume and diversity of material described. As an intellectual contribution, it takes the long view and carefully considers temporal, cultural, transnational, and human/nonhuman elements. It is clearly going to be a major text for those seeking to understand this particular manifestation of the global environmental movement and its functioning. In this way, the text leaves some questions open. For example, how do FoE and FoEI fit within the broader global environmental movement? What implications are there from the emergence in the last decade of specifically climate-focused activist organizations? And more broadly, what role do such organizations hold in a world that has witnessed the spread of neoliberal environmental management policies, which have sought to individualize responsibility and govern both at a distance and through market mechanisms? These are intriguing questions I was left with when finishing Gatt's book and I think that they reflect how thought-provoking this text is as an outstanding piece of rich, deep, and carefully constructed scholarship.

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