abstract: During the politically charged period between the 1950s and 1970s in the United States, Nancy Newhall emerged as an important advocate for open space. She began traveling to the West which encouraged her dedication to land preservation and invigorated her enthusiasm for photography. Newhall was already a respected curator and author addressing the communicative roles of photographs. After spearheading groundbreaking museum retrospectives of contemporary photographers she expanded her artistic vison to include conservation activism. The notable photographers, scholars, writers, and politicians with whom she collaborated often overshadowed her contributions, and they have been under celebrated until recently. My project studies her efforts on a quintessential Sierra Club publication from 1960. While considering her book titled This Is The American Earth I was led to insightful explorations of her unique approach to contextualizing photographs. My investigations revealed the impact that the work of Nancy Newhall had on land preservation, alongside her prolonged influence on the acceptance of photography as fine art and a resilient device of communication. In This Is The American Earth her calculated, inspired approach, attaching text to photos conveyed stirring messages to readers and forwarded an innovative use of a genre that the Sierra Club willingly embraced. Working with its president and Ansel Adams, she edited, wrote, and published several popular illustrated volumes which brought an interpretation of open space into American living rooms. Her efforts produced iconic picture books that remain memorable examples of the mid-20th century conservation movement. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Art History 2016

This thesis paper explores how various actors gathered around bottled water when a ban was put into place in Concord, Massachusetts. The objective has been to answer the following questions: How does an apolitical commodity become a political one? Specifically, how does bottled water move from being an apolitical commodity to become a highly political one? What does this mean for environmental politics? I situate my theoretical approach within Martha Kaplan’s research with fountains and coolers. I use Bruno Latour to show in which ways this ban became a matter of concern, as well as how the ban and the plastic bottle are actors. I conducted fieldwork in Concord and I interviewed participants. My findings reveal that the ban brought meanings to the surface and challenged them or supported them in various ways. The discussions turned from the impact of bottled water on our environment to the political impact of bottled water companies and large corporations on local Concord issues.

abstract: While Lynn White’s 1967 article, The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis, ignited a firestorm of controversy regarding the relationship between religion, particularly Christianity, and the environment, the testing of White’s hypothesis, that Christians are anthropocentric and anti-environment, has produced results that are significantly less clear. Additionally, little research has been conducted with experts in the field of Christianity, the clergy, adding to already significant gaps in the literature. The current research study helps fill that gap by providing the perspective of clergy on the relationship between Christianity and the environment. This qualitative study uses in-depth interviews to assess the topics of importance to members of the clergy within the Phoenix, Arizona metropolitan region as well as their professional perspective of the relationship between religion and the environment. The results indicate that community is of great importance to leaders of faith-based organizations, but stewardship is also a primary foundation of the church. While no support was found for White’s hypothesis, a willingness to learn and a need for expertise on environmental issues was identified. In this regard, environmental professionals, specifically landscape architects, have been identified as the ideal group to provide the bridge between faith-based organizations and the environment. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Design, Environment and the Arts 2019

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Made available in DSpace on 2014-07-29T16:27:58Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Iniciais_Lucia_bertazzo.pdf: 836147 bytes, checksum: 1e6907f2b3f657c55b25e7a44cf4e96e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-06-26 / Siron Franco is an artist who has, in a parallel with his pictorial work, always produced pieces that denounced social grievances and pieces of political nature which, placed in public settings, aimed at inducing the media to broadcast protests. The artist has for very long championed the environmental cause, what has led him to produce a series of pieces on the theme: paintings, demonstrations, stickers, installations, video-sculptures. This dissertation sets out to review the historical moment in which these pieces come out and presents them as postmodern art work produced in line with environmental activism. This research intends to analyze the insertion of artistic protests which have the environment as a cause, into the press and in contemporary art production / Siron Franco é um artista que, paralelamente ao seu trabalho pictórico, produz obras que denunciam problemas sociais e obras de cunho político. Colocadas em locais públicos, têm o objetivo de induzir os meios de comunicação a veicular protestos. O artista assumiu desde sempre a causa ambiental, o que o levou a produzir uma série de obras, pinturas, passeatas, adesivos, instalações, vídeoescultura que abordam o tema. O presente trabalho visa rever o momento histórico em que as ações e instalações de Siron Franco (1986-2008) se inserem e as apresenta como produções de arte desenvolvidas junto com o ativismo ambiental. A pesquisa pretende analisar a inserção dos seus protestos artísticos, que têm como tema o meio ambiente, dentro da imprensa e da produção de arte contemporânea

Over the past decades, a widespread consensus has emerged regarding the anthropogenic causes and negative impacts of climate change. For instance, the environmental pollution reaches alarming dimensions on a global level implying immanent dangers to the future of humankind and nature. The need to take action in order to maintain the integrity of human and environmental systems has long been recognised by most political elites, business leaders, activists and the scientific community. Yet, it seems that political and economic institutions do not move on fast enough from words to actions. At the same time, a depoliticisation of the public sphere is observed repressing a radical critical discourse. Several political theorists and philosophers debate about the emergence of a post-political and postdemocratic condition, implying a state of politics of consensus. The thesis at hand aimed to investigate the post-political condition of climate change activism in the online realm by means of the case of a rather recent trend of environmental activism, the zero waste movement. A quantitative content analysis was conducted studying 500 #zerowaste tweets that were posted in April 2018. The content characteristics of the Twitter postings were analysed and a coding system developed to measure the post-political condition of communication practices in the environmental pollution debate on Twitter.  The study finds that in particular civic actors (citizen and public personalities), commercial and nonprofit organisations engaged in the zero waste debate distributing informative content mobilising the public to make certain lifestyle decisions. It is furthermore revealed that the #zerowaste debate on Twitter is evidently depoliticised. The communication practices on the social media platform incorporated in many ways discursive strategies such as universalisation and externalisation resulting in a rationalised and moralised representation of the problem of environmental pollution.

Most studies in environmental politics have traditionally examined three broad areas: the degradation of the environment; the regulatory regimes governing the environment; or environmental activism within the affluent North. This thesis provides an alternative perspective, exploring environmental activism in the less affluent South. In particular, while human rights and social justice perspectives have historically been largely absent from many environmental movements of the North, this thesis argues that, due to precarious living conditions and authoritarian governance, these issues are of primary importance for environmentalists in the South. As a result this thesis contends that most environmental movements in the South are part of a growing global justice movement and that important cultural diversities within this movement can result in novel forms of resistance and environmental governance. The focus here is on the emancipatory actors within these movements in the South who challenge existing power structures within society. Likewise, by adopting a critical perspective, this thesis argues that large business interests pursue energy projects in the South in the name of energy security and large scale industrial development that are often inappropriate for local development and security needs. To test these hypotheses, four case studies were undertaken that examine transnational gas pipeline and large dam projects at various stages of their development which originate in either Burma (Myanmar) or Thailand. Empirical research, primarily in the form of interviews, undertaken in the countries hosting the various energy projects demonstrated that although environmental activists in the South were assisted by transnational activist networks there were also important local factors that impacted on the emancipatory philosophies, strategies and tactics of many activists in this region. These strategies have achieved some success, with environmental impact assessment (EIA) processes in Thailand now providing a potential opening for the political engagement of communities. Nevertheless, this thesis finds that the power of corporate interests in the international political economy often poses insurmountable barriers for activists to achieve both their short and long term aims. The findings suggest that despite the efforts of activists, local indigenous and ethnic minority communities continue to bear the brunt of the social and environmental costs of transnational energy projects in the South while receiving few of the benefits. Rather than safeguarding these communities from deprivation, these projects often exacerbate existing social tensions and conflicts, resulting in increased community insecurity. / http://proxy.library.adelaide.edu.au/login?url= http://library.adelaide.edu.au/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=1474397 / Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of History and Politics, 2009

Most studies in environmental politics have traditionally examined three broad areas: the degradation of the environment; the regulatory regimes governing the environment; or environmental activism within the affluent North. This thesis provides an alternative perspective, exploring environmental activism in the less affluent South. In particular, while human rights and social justice perspectives have historically been largely absent from many environmental movements of the North, this thesis argues that, due to precarious living conditions and authoritarian governance, these issues are of primary importance for environmentalists in the South. As a result this thesis contends that most environmental movements in the South are part of a growing global justice movement and that important cultural diversities within this movement can result in novel forms of resistance and environmental governance. The focus here is on the emancipatory actors within these movements in the South who challenge existing power structures within society. Likewise, by adopting a critical perspective, this thesis argues that large business interests pursue energy projects in the South in the name of energy security and large scale industrial development that are often inappropriate for local development and security needs. To test these hypotheses, four case studies were undertaken that examine transnational gas pipeline and large dam projects at various stages of their development which originate in either Burma (Myanmar) or Thailand. Empirical research, primarily in the form of interviews, undertaken in the countries hosting the various energy projects demonstrated that although environmental activists in the South were assisted by transnational activist networks there were also important local factors that impacted on the emancipatory philosophies, strategies and tactics of many activists in this region. These strategies have achieved some success, with environmental impact assessment (EIA) processes in Thailand now providing a potential opening for the political engagement of communities. Nevertheless, this thesis finds that the power of corporate interests in the international political economy often poses insurmountable barriers for activists to achieve both their short and long term aims. The findings suggest that despite the efforts of activists, local indigenous and ethnic minority communities continue to bear the brunt of the social and environmental costs of transnational energy projects in the South while receiving few of the benefits. Rather than safeguarding these communities from deprivation, these projects often exacerbate existing social tensions and conflicts, resulting in increased community insecurity. / http://proxy.library.adelaide.edu.au/login?url= http://library.adelaide.edu.au/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=1474397 / Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of History and Politics, 2009

Les enjeux environnementaux contemporains nécessitent la mobilisation de l’ensemble des acteurs sociétaux. Dans ce contexte, comprendre adéquatement la participation politique citoyenne face à l’environnement est primordial. En recensant la littérature, on note que certains courants analytiques concluent à la nécessité d’élargir les concepts de participation politique et d’activisme environnemental afin de mieux considérer l’impact du mode de vie et de la sphère privée. En nous appuyant sur les points saillants de ces deux littératures, nous avançons une typologie qui différencie les gestes activistes pro-environnementaux selon leur «nouveauté» (en tant qu’objets analytiques de nature politique) et leur radicalité. Afin de valider empiriquement ce modèle et de déterminer si les nouveaux comportements activistes environnementaux sont réellement politiques, nous avons analysé les données d’un sondage réalisé auprès de 3458 Canadiens issus de la population générale et de 2653 membres de groupes environnementaux canadiens. Nous avons d’abord effectué une analyse factorielle exploratoire afin d’identifier différents types de gestes pro-environnementaux. Après avoir associé les facteurs résultant aux quadrants de notre typologie, nous avons effectué une série d’analyses de régression linéaires visant à comparer les caractéristiques des gestes conventionnellement politiques et des nouveaux comportements activistes. Les résultats tendent à confirmer la vision voulant que ces derniers aient une forte résonance politique. Il semble donc nécessaire de tenir compte du potentiel élargi de la notion de comportement politique, de façon à tirer des conclusions plus justes, tant au niveau de l’évaluation de la participation politique citoyenne que de l’engagement activiste lié aux enjeux environnementaux. / Contemporary environmental issues require the mobilization of all societal actors. In this context, it is essential to be able to adequately understand citizen political participation regarding the environment. In reviewing the literature, we note that certain analytical currents conclude that there is a need to broaden the concepts of political participation and environmental activism in order to better consider the impact of lifestyle and the private sphere. Based on the highlights of these two literatures, we propose a typology that differentiates pro-environmental activist actions according to their "novelty" (as analytical objects of a political nature) and their radicality. In order to empirically validate this model and to determine whether new environmental activist behaviours are truly political, we analyzed data from a survey of 3458 Canadians from the general population and 2653 members of Canadian environmental groups. We first conducted an exploratory factor analysis to identify different types of pro-environmental actions. After associating the resulting factors to the quadrants of our typology, we conducted a series of linear regression analyses to compare the characteristics of conventional political actions and new activist behaviours. The results tend to confirm the view that the latter have a strong political resonance. It therefore seems necessary to consider the broader potential of the notion of political behaviour in order to draw more accurate conclusions, both in terms of assessing citizen political participation and activist engagement in environmental issues.