Emerging environmentalisms: contestation, crisis and the far right in Australia

<p dir="ltr">This doctoral research project investigates the dynamics of political contestation within the field of environmentalism in the Australian context. The reflexive considerations of environmentalist actors, including from the left and right political margins of the field, are explored to shed light on their struggles and commitments to environmental politics. Contemporary societies are facing extraordinary political and environmental challenges. Climate, biodiversity and other environmental crises are unfolding at an unprecedented speed and scale. Simultaneously, the norms of liberal democratic politics are facing challenges from populist and far-right actors in a wide range of global and local contexts. The intersections of these crises are dynamic sites of struggle and transformation. How societies such as Australia, a settler-colonial state, seek to address these issues will have wide ranging consequences for the future. Environmentalism plays a key role in driving change that attempts to address intersecting socioenvironmental crises. The environment movement utilises a range of discourse and practice to make sense of, and combat, these crises. But environmentalism is also a space of political contestation regarding the meaning and application of these ways of thinking and doing.</p><p dir="ltr">To address that space of urgency, this thesis utilises the theories of Pierre Bourdieu to examine the (re)emerging phenomena of pro-environmental thought and practice coming from the far right of politics. It does so in the first instance through interviewees with a range of environmental actors. The thesis also considers the relationship of several currently active far-right groups to nature, national landscape and environmental politics. By investigating far-right spaces on the fringe of environmentalism, sites of discursive crossover with left-wing and liberal environmentalism are highlighted. These sites have the potential for collaborations, unwitting or otherwise, that may shift the political composition and outlook of environmentalism. This in turn affects the kinds of futures that may be built. Understanding these dynamics of struggle is essential for challenging inadequate and unjust environmental politics whilst delivering durable and egalitarian socio-environmental outcomes through and beyond current crises.</p>