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Environmental activism, with decades of relevant presence already, is a fundamental element for the preservation of natural and cultural values. Theories around their bases, protagonists, methods, instruments and results proliferate in a period of obliged ecological transition. Here, we present an investigation in the region of Girona (Catalunya, S...
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In this contribution, the self-reported linguistic practices of researchers engaged in an international research project are analysed and discussed. These researchers constitute a community of practice of intercomprehension, using mostly romance languages to communicate and, at the same time, also researching the phenomena, both receptively and pro...
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... This research is the result of knowledge acquired from previously published results [22], combined with the analysis of documentary archives (digital and printed) and specialist publications, complementary interviews of experts, and the inference of a tentative taxonomy of territorial mobilizations according to their outcome. ...
... Data sources used were common to most research in the field [18], online newspaper archive services, printed and digital archives of environmental organizations, and direct communication with activists. Among the four theoretical dimensions, impacts; outputs; outcomes; and consequences [18][19][20][21][22], we focused largely on the outputs and define four typologies, according to the resolution or current status of the environmental conflict. This research has employed the same approach ( Figure 3). ...
... This involves a deeper understanding of the impacts, in terms of territorial/environmental actions, political incidence, and societal shift. Compared to [22], a wider range of categories was inferred based on the different nature and evolving paths the conflicts took. This new, more detailed taxonomy sits on a spectrum that ranges from a worst-case scenario of the defeat of the mobilization, to the promotion As previously mentioned, the core aim of this research is to explore the role of civil society in shaping landscapes. ...
This paper deals with the results of the “SavingScapes” research project, where Girona (SP) and Genoa (IT) areas were chosen as case studies to assess the role and relevance of civil society in landscape alteration and conservation. These contexts share many features which led to similar transformative pressures and consequent deeply rooted place attachment clashing in the form of social mobilizations. Nevertheless, the civil society approach and actions proved profoundly different. Hence, there is a need to define a shared methodology to make them comparable. The authors define seven categories, ranging from defeat to prefigurative politics, to assess local mobilization in terms of territorial impacts.
... Directly connecting with the St. Victor transformer is the anti-MAT (very high-tension lines) struggle in Catalonia, central and southern Spain. The anti-MAT struggle exists alongside many fights against factories, tourist developments and highways (Nogué & Wilbrand, 2010;Nuss-Girona et al., 2020). The first 400kv AC (alternating current) MAT line between Vic-Baixas was built in 1982, with plans for an HVDC (High Voltage Direct Current) emerging in the 1990s. ...
This article critically examines the GND (Green New Deal) platform by exploring the reality of energy development under the European Green Deal (EGD). Taking a special interest in degrowth positions on energy development, the article argues that the European Green Deal is an exercise in necropolitics; intensifying market relationships, extraction, and infrastructural colonization. The article proceeds by reviewing and discussing recent environmental justice and degrowth positions on energy infrastructural development. The methodology outlines desk-based research on resource extraction as well as on the European energy markets. This accompanies multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork, charting environmental conflicts along a 400kv high-tension power line. This line goes across France, Catalonia and Southern Spain, stretching into Morocco and occupied Western Sahara. Unconventional research techniques, such as hitchhiking, enabled mobility and expanding the informal interview pool. Outlining the objectives of the EGD, the next section examines three aspects of its necropolitics. First, necropolitical economy reveals the reality of energy market liberalization under the EGD. Second, necropolitical extraction examines the expansion of mining and mineral processing, which are necessary for the EGD and ‘mainstream’ GNDs. Third, necropolitical operation reveal the reality of ‘a rapid rollout of renewable energy deployment’ by examining infrastructure conflicts along a 400kv power line between France and Spain. The process of infrastructural colonization is detailed, which also introduces different land defender perspectives on degrowth. Affirming the argument that the EGD is an exercise in necropolitics, the conclusion discusses important ways to expand degrowth, energy ecologies and real energy transition.
... The anti-MAT (very high-tension lines) struggle, people contend, 33 began in the Basque country in 1994. The Girona region retains a rich history of struggle that continues into the present resisting toxic factories, highways, tourism development and, most famously, MAT power lines (Nogué & Wilbrand, 2010;Nuss-Girona et al., 2020). Planning for the southeast MAT line began in the Iberian east, in 1999, leading to the creation of the No a la MAT platforma 34 in the Girona region. ...
Climate change now serves to justify new mandates for increasing ‘clean’ and ‘renewable’ energy, which affirms the existing European trajectory of infrastructural expansion. Employing a multi-sited political ecology analysis of infrastructure (MSPEAI), this article connects five environmental conflicts via a 400-kV high-voltage power line (HVPL). The conflicts span across France, Catalonia and Spain, revealing how the European ‘green’ transition entrenches infrastructural harm by branding it ‘green’. The European Green Deal, and other climate change legislation, are intensifying the infrastructural colonization of the countryside and the neoliberalization of the energy sector. By examining five interlinked environmental conflicts, this article, contrary to public relations efforts and European policy, demonstrates how there is no ‘renewable’ energy transition, only electrical grid expansion (e.g. increasing material and energy-use) and conflict resulting in green infrastructural harm. The conclusion, thereby, reveals the necessity of enacting degrowth policy proposals immediately to lessen and stop the spread of ecological and climate catastrophe.
... Conflicts over the future use of land are evident in the papers of Busscher et al. [8] and Nuss-Girona et al. [22], where the conflicts appear between stakeholders with different interests and at different political-administrative levels. In the case of Argentina [8], conflicts are not only between the local communities and those who buy the land, but also, and perhaps more visibly, between the NGOs, who aim to protect the rights of the local communities though with limited countervailing power, and the provincial government which frames the conditions for the land to be bought by outsiders. ...
... The work of the NGOs has thought about a better-informed civil society, empowered local communities and improved land tenure security-but it has not solved the questions of conflict. The example of activism in Girona (Catalonia), in response to environmental conflicts, is a clear example of how different organisations and movements may be mobilised and become capable of pressuring for changes in the conservation of landscapes [22]. The paper of Khoroshev [12] demonstrates how landscape ecological mapping can contribute to the identification of environmental conflicts and needs for change. ...
... This case also demonstrated the significance of scale when conflicts and new developments are to be linked. The Girona case [22] can be read as a fascinating tale of early mass tourism developments in the Costa Brava region, which in the beginning (the 1960s and 1970s) occurred without any environmental concerns; a gigantic placemaking venture operated by speculators and developers ending in profound conflicts with environmental groups. This process was then (for a short period) replaced by another placemaking process, resulting in new designated national parks after which yet another tourist bonanza period started, without the necessary complementary management of conflicts in place. ...
Rural landscape dynamics are challenging existing policy regimes for a number of reasons and new approaches to landscape governance are needed [...]
Social movements are at the origin of environmental protection of the coastline in tourist destinations. Consequently, it is crucial that this role will continue in the future, if urbanisation pressures persist and in a context of energy transition. The various reasons for this starting hypothesis are historical, sociological, political, economic and cultural, so that the geographical variable is relevant, as it is related to the specific conditions of the territory.The analysis of these social resistances must be complemented with the more environmentalist evolution of transversal policies that affect the tourist coastline, such as urban planning strategies or laws for the protection and management of the coast.This chapter analyses the social mobilisations for territorial protection of the Costa Brava coastline over the last fifty years, mapping more than 230 mobilisations. The results are relevant maps regarding the actors and their motivations and, of particular interest, the negative impacts.KeywordsUrbanisation pressuresSocial movementsLandscapeTransversal policies
