Horowitz, L.S. 2012. Power, profit, protest: Grassroots resistance to industry in the global North.
Capitalism Nature Socialism 23(3): 21-34.
Introduction: Corporations and Their Discontents
Corporations today, it is well known, are wealthier than many governments, with operations that
span the globe and determine what we eat, what medicine we take, even—through massive yet sometimes
surreptitious public relations campaigns—what we think (see Oreskes and Conway 2010). While
industrial development has improved the quality of life of much of the world’s population, since the
1970s there has been increasing recognition of the severe environmental and social impacts it entails,
during both routine operations and spectacular accidents. The 1984 Bhopal disaster helped to raise
international awareness of the need to make corporations legally accountable for their failures (Jasanoff
1994), yet governmental regulation—a “nation-state-based system”—is made extremely difficult by the
transnationalization of many projects (Garsten and Hernes 2009, 190). A prime example is the 2010 Gulf
of Mexico oil spill catastrophe, which involved an oil rig built in South Korea that was operated by a
Swiss firm under contract to a British company and was registered in the Marshall Islands, which held the
primary responsibility for safety and other inspections.
As economic operations become more multinational, power shifts away from the nation-state.
This shift encompasses not only an economic but also a political dimension as international agreements
become necessary in order to facilitate, or control, the global reach of such projects. However, politicoeconomic power shifts toward not only the supra-national but also the local scale, through a process that
Swyngedouw (2000) has labeled “glocalization.” In the face of the widespread yet elusive power of
transnational corporations, civil society nonetheless continually pressures companies to reduce
environmental and social impacts from their activities. Protestors may use direct action, such as violent
attacks, or discursive action, including court battles as well as attempts to tarnish the companies’
reputations, which are increasingly important in a globalized world (Garsten and Hernes 2009; GriegGran 2002). These and other efforts increase the costs of industrial projects by necessitating “extra staff
required to handle community resistance, lawyers and lobbyists, and payments to corrupt officials or to
buy off recalcitrant communities” (Kuecker 2007, 104). All these costs contribute to “the internalization
of externalities” (Martínez-Alier 1991, 622). Beyond direct costs to corporations, these actions influence
the financial sector as investors realize that companies pass financial and reputational risks on to the
institutions that support them, and that a company’s management of environmental and social issues may
provide an indication of its ability to tackle other management problems (Grieg-Gran 2002). These
concerns have prompted investors to screen potential funding recipients, through mechanisms such as the
FTSE4Good Index Series (FTSE 2011), and have inspired powerful funding agencies such as the World
Bank to impose directives upon clients (Szablowski 2002).
Demands from regulators, investors, and civil society have coalesced into a growing Corporate
Social Responsibility (CSR) movement. In an effort to seize “control of the movement before it seized
control over them” (Welker 2009, 145), corporations have begun turning to self-regulation such as
voluntary codes of conduct. In the mining sector, for example, initiatives have included the International
Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM), the Mining, Minerals and Sustainable Development (MMSD)
report, the Mining Certification Evaluation Project (MCEP), the Initiative for Responsible Mining
Assurance (IRMA), and an “alphabet soup of other acronyms” (Horowitz 2006, 307). However, such
efforts raise serious problems for companies when they attract criticism from civil society groups, court
accusations of creating barriers to trade, or prove difficult to enforce (Webb 2004). Meanwhile, they have
no legal weight and often do not satisfy stakeholders concerned about, or suffering from, the impacts of
industrial development.
1
Two elements of civil society involved in resistance to the impacts of industrial development are
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and grassroots organizations (GROs). NGOs are “officially
established, run by employed staff (often urban professionals or expatriates), well-supported (by domestic
or, as is more often the case, international funding), and [. . .] often relatively large and well-resourced”
(Mercer 2002, 6). GROs, in contrast, are locally-based, “smaller, often membership-based organizations,
operating without a paid staff but often reliant upon donor or NGO support, which tend to be (but are not
always) issue-based and therefore ephemeral” (Mercer 2002, 6). NGOs have far more resources and
connections at their disposal, and therefore are capable of actions difficult for GROs, such as mounting
large-scale campaigns or lobbying governments. GROs, however, may have other types of resources that
NGOs lack, including special legal rights, public sympathy for the “underdog,” or the political and moral
legitimacy associated with indigeneity (see Horowitz in press). Beyond contributing to the pressure on
corporations imposed by investors and governments, grassroots movements can directly affect
development projects, rearranging power relations (e.g., Davies and Young 1996; Towers 2000; Edelman
2001; Kirsch 2002; Power 2003; Kuecker 2007; Bebbington, et al. 2008; Horowitz 2009).
Thus, despite the odds, grassroots movements can pose serious challenges to both governments
and corporations. Yet this story is rarely a simple David and Goliath parable. Grassroots protestors act
from a variety of motivations, and their visions of development may evolve in complex ways. Meanwhile,
their relative powerlessness obliges them to forge an array of shifting alliances and innovate a range of
adaptive strategies. While many studies have examined environmental social movements, few have
closely explored the controversies and complexities of grassroots groups’ relationships to governments,
corporations, NGOs, or the communities the activists claim to represent.
The papers in this collection trace the intricacies of grassroots resistance to the impacts of
industrial development through detailed case studies of communities resisting impacts from a variety of
forms of industrial development: factories, the high-tech industry, logging, and nuclear power. Despite
this diversity, the studies have two commonalities. First, all the sites are located in the global North,
specifically Canada and the U.S. (Colorado, Georgia, and New York). To contextualize this special
issue’s findings, the next section of this introduction outlines existing scholarship on resistance to
industrial development in the North. The literature on resistance is, of course, informed by Marxist
theory, as the third section of this introduction briefly discusses. The papers in this special issue engage
critically with this body of theory, building on Marxist insights about the social inequities often found
behind environmental issues, yet also seeking to further expand and nuance these understandings through
close examination of specific instances of resistance. They do this by means of the papers’ second
commonality, a shared ethnographic approach called “micropolitical ecology,” defined in the fourth
section of this introduction. This analytical methodology allows the authors to dissect simplistic,
essentialized interpretations of environmental struggles, unpacking concepts such as the “community” or
the “social movement” by examining ways in which micro-level political, economic, and social
interactions influence grassroots visions of industrial development and actions to address it. These
interactions include both confrontation and cohesion, and occur both between communities and their
supporters, and within communities themselves. Together, as discussed at the end of this introduction,
these papers make important contributions to our understanding of several themes inherent to grassroots
struggles: micropolitics, power/knowledge relations, and strategies. In doing so, they help to elucidate
relationships between Northern activists and the multiple groups with which they interact.
Environmental Resistance in the Global North
Much recent scholarship on resistance to industry in the global North deals with Environmental
Justice (EJ) issues (although, of course, the EJ framework is now applied to the developing world as
well—see Schroeder, et al. 2008). EJ opposes structural inequities through which poor and minority
2
groups are especially likely to have hazardous or polluting industries and facilities in their neighborhoods,
as they have the least political and financial resources to challenge such siting decisions (Pellow and
Brulle 2005; Saha and Mohai 2005; Checker, this issue). EJ is thus a type of “environmentalism of the
poor” (Martínez-Alier 1991; 2002; see also Guha 1997), driven by a need for access to natural resources,
in this case clean air and water. Such environmental activism has been contrasted to the “ecology of
affluence,” which is defined as a “luxury, leisure-time concern” (Guha 1997) and often focuses on the
conservation of remote, wild landscapes. This latter environmentalism is motivated not by need, nor,
arguably, even by a love of nature, but by a love of “particular representations of nature” and
“characterized by a lack of contact and interaction” with the environments in question (Brockington 2008,
553, original emphasis).
However, not all the environmental concerns of the relatively affluent result from boredom and
self-indulgence (or, more sympathetically, genuine concerns for distant species); they, too, may oppose
the siting of environmentally destructive facilities or infrastructure in their own neighborhood (see Ervin,
this issue). When such concerns are expressed by the middle or upper classes, particularly in the
developed world, they are often contemptuously labeled NIMBY (not in my backyard) and glossed over
as attempts to resist a LULU (locally unwanted land use) (e.g., Kraft and Clary 1991; Schively 2007).
Studies of NIMBY have uncovered its complexity, noting that no instance “branded with this name”
perfectly fits its definition (Wolsink 2006, 86). Scholars have objected that instead of implying selfish
behavior, it may actually be about fairness (Wolsink 2006), place attachment (Collins and Kearns 2010;
Devine-Wright 2009), or meaningful public participation in decision-making (Fischer 2000; Zografos and
Martínez-Alier 2009). Thus, notwithstanding a prevalence in the scholarly literature of sympathetic
portrayals of EJ concerns alongside generally negative depictions of NIMBYism (e.g., Hubbard 2005),
the actors involved often share similar concerns despite their obviously different socio-economic
conditions (see Little, this issue; Pirkey, this issue).
Moreover, people fighting the siting of industrial developments near their homes, whatever their
race or class, have grown increasingly aware that shifting impacts away from one’s own community
simply means that “another powerless community will be opened to the environmental risk” (McGurty
2000, 384). NIMBY, thus, has sometimes metamorphosed into NIABY (not in anyone’s backyard), which
manifests when “people oppose siting [LULUs] anywhere” (Lober and Green 1994, 35). EJ, too, does not
seek merely to redistribute environmental harms but also to address their causes (EJnet.org 1991).
However, EJ has been criticized as lacking a strong theoretical dimension that would allow for a
pinpointing of those causes (Swyngedouw and Heynen 2003). Marxism proposes such a theoretical
underpinning by pointing to capitalist structures as the ultimate drivers of environmentally destructive
industrial activities (see, e.g., Harvey 1996).
Marxism and Political Ecology
While Marx has often been accused of a lack of environmental concern, recent scholarship has
pointed to his arguments about the ecological dimensions of inequitable class relations, often grounded in
unequal access to natural resources such as land or firewood (Marx 1975; also see Benton 1996; Foster
2000). He also noted that capitalist modes of exploitation of land and forests were inherently destructive
and irrational, although he “never put two and two together” to argue that capitalism would inevitably
undermine the natural resource base upon which it depends (O’Connor 1988, 4). Marxist scholars did
make that connection, however, now classed as the “second contradiction of capitalism” (O’Connor 1991;
see also Leff 1992). Some scholars have criticized this framework as ultimately reductionist, analyzing
the environment only in terms of “its role in capital accumulation,” whereas it is also understood through
“a set of values that is not reducible to formal, instrumental, or purposive rationality” (Marshall and
Goldstein 2006, 219). However, others have built upon the insights contained within the “second
3
contradiction”; for instance, this concept informed the development of the ecosocialist movement, which
laments the environmental damage that capitalism has wreaked and proposes an alternative path to human
happiness not predicated upon the constant production, and acquisition, of material items (e.g., Kovel and
Löwy 2001).
Political ecology also draws upon this and other forms of Marxist thought to examine the
complex relationships between environmental conditions and the social relations of production (see
Peluso and Watts 2001; Watts and Peet 2004). Since its emergence in the 1970s, political ecology has
expanded the framework of political economy to an analysis of political, economic, and socio-cultural
factors informing environmental issues (e.g., Blaikie and Brookfield 1987; Bryant and Bailey 1997;
Robbins 2004). Meanwhile, despite a clear (over-?)emphasis on material conditions as driving history (a
fixation perhaps attributable more to Engels and Lenin than to Marx himself), Marxism does recognize
the influence of human belief and affect on political struggles. Marxist thought has always acknowledged
that it is not just what is that determines the power politics behind economic activities, but also the
populace’s ideas about what should be (what Hegel called “right”) (see Mann 2009). Gramsci, in
particular, emphasized that “‘popular beliefs’ [. . .] have the equivalence of ‘material forces’” (1996
[1975]). Political ecology applies this framework to socio-environmental relations. Akin to Gramsci in
that it emphasizes the ideational (if less the moral) aspects of these relationships, it takes this focus on the
world of ideas a step further to highlight the role of place-specific meanings and identities, and not just
ideologies, in environmental struggles (e.g., Moore 1996; 1998). Thus, for instance, political ecology
demonstrates that negative environmental impacts from industry include not only economic harms to
livelihoods based in natural resources and physical harms to human health; corporate practices also pose
threats to cultural identities and practices, grounded in places and the resources they contain (Bebbington,
et al. 2008). Identity and meaning are critical components of what Habermas calls the “lifeworld,” a
shared “stock of knowledge” (1987, 125) that infuses social and economic praxis with cultural
significance. In the process of industrialization, lifeworlds may become “colonized” (Habermas 1987; see
also Crossley 2002), reduced to the provision of labor for industries that have an insatiable demand for
both human and natural resources. This development may strip communities of identity and meaning,
such as by destroying the cultural heritage of landscapes and archaeological sites (O’Faircheallaigh 2008).
Communities may ultimately find themselves divided, or community members themselves may be torn,
between competing desires for economic benefits through employment and for the cultural identity
associated with a lifestyle based in the use of now-imperiled natural resources (Horowitz 2010).
While political ecology, which has an explicitly emancipatory agenda, was initially formulated to
be specifically “focused on the Third World” (Bryant and Bailey 1997, 8), McCarthy (2002) challenged
the usefulness of such a restriction by demonstrating the applicability of this approach to environmental
issues in the rural American West. Since that time, many authors have contributed to a burgeoning First
World political ecology. The papers in this collection make a further contribution to this literature. They
examine the role of cultural factors such as identity, ethnicity, social networks, a sense of place, and a
sense of community in environmental resistance, thus challenging the notion that such resistance is aimed
solely, or even primarily, at the redistribution of economic benefits and costs. To achieve these aims, the
authors rely upon close examination of particular instances of resistance and the multiple social
relationships they involve, analyzing these cases through the lens of micropolitical ecology.
Micropolitical Ecology
Responding to criticism that political ecology suffered from a “macrostructural bias” (Moore
1993, 380), scholars from the early 1990s onward began to focus more on “the ‘micro-politics’ that
informs environmental conflict and cooperation at the local level” (Bryant and Bailey 1997, 24), applying
an “actor-oriented” (Giddens 1976; 1979; Long 1992), ethnographic methodology while recognizing
4
broader politico-historical, economic and social forces. This hybrid approach has been termed
“micropolitical ecology” (Horowitz 2008).
Clearly, industrial development is a story that unfolds simultaneously at multiple scales, from the
local to—increasingly—the international. Thus, it is essential to account for both the macro-level politicoeconomic forces inherent to industrial development and the micro-level processes that influence the forms
its encounters take as well as their outcomes (see Horowitz 2011). By applying a micropolitical ecology
lens to grassroots engagements with industry in the global North, the papers in this special issue provide
insights into factors that enable or constrain activism. They uncover the working-out, on the ground, of
broader politico-economic forces, and ways these inform advocacy group strategies, mediated by locallevel dynamics. They also demonstrate that examinations of community members’ motivations and
interactions can elucidate the broader struggles in which they engage. Throughout, by examining
instances of cohesion and/or tension, among community members and/or between grassroots protestors
and outside sympathizers, the papers simultaneously examine—and untangle—the often confusingly
intertwined nexus of protestors, corporations, governments, NGOs, communities, and a distant “public.”
In doing so, they ask important questions about power/knowledge relations, including: Who defines what
the “environment” is, what environmental “problems” are, and how they should be dealt with? How do
such concerns and controversies intersect with identities? Who has the power to make their visions
reality? Who represents the “community”? How do community members view “outsiders,” and vice
versa? How do power/knowledge struggles play out within the community, and how do these micro-level
engagements influence the course of action?
Grassroots groups implement a range of strategies in these power/knowledge struggles. However,
their relative powerlessness makes them rely strongly on alliances, relationships, and negotiations. The
papers in this collection interrogate the ways that available options inform grassroots struggles. They
examine the usefulness—and pitfalls—of concepts such as “ethnicity” in environmental protests; ways
that new structures and opportunities created by contemporary global social change inform, facilitate and
also impede strategies of both protest groups and corporations; and how discursive strategies are used to
garner support. Meanwhile, they explore the significance of networks for protestors and those they target,
examining different approaches that groups or individuals take to the same issues and the possibilities—
or lack thereof—of collaborations between them.
The Papers
This collection begins with Melissa Checker’s analysis of a community’s thirty-year struggle for
environmental justice in Hyde Park, Georgia, U.S.A. While this study touches on various dimensions of
micropolitical ecology—cohesion and tension, among community members and between community and
outsiders—its overarching story is one of solidarity. In efforts to redress their neighborhood’s toxic
contamination from multiple industrial sites, Hyde Park activists frequently sought, and encountered,
people from outside the community who presented themselves as offering expertise or funding. While
open to such assistance, community members also questioned the motives, and ability to understand the
situation they faced, of people who did not experience the daily risks, fears and frustrations that resulted
from the contamination. Their skepticism was born of 30 years of broken promises from similar outsiders.
While boundaries between “insider” and “outsider” were slippery, gliding back and forth to include, or
exclude, individuals who earned or abused the community’s trust, it was the need to forge unanimity in
the face of external adversity that brought the community together in a shared skepticism, and a unified
resistance. More than a unifying principle, skepticism itself became a strategy for resistance when
grassroots activists refused to be patronized by outside “experts” since they already possessed extensive
knowledge of the issues they faced and savvy about how to address them. Most important of all, residents
were united by a desire for community autonomy in deciding how to remedy their situation, a desire that
was even more important to them than funding controlled by outsiders.
5
Similarly, Alexander Ervin’s study is a tale of solidarity, but it is also about the usefulness of
networking. Facing the prospect of nuclear energy development in Saskatchewan, Canada, a diverse
network of local residents mobilized to fight the nuclear industry’s and provincial government’s plans.
Ervin, a participant in this movement, notes that nuclear energy development was tabled partly due to
unfavorable circumstances in the form of rising economic costs and a changing political climate, but also,
importantly, to the “Clean Green Saskatchewan” coalition and the clear “No Nukes Go Renewables”
message it sent to the government and media. Ervin attributes the movement’s success and cohesiveness
to its “rhizomatic” character. In contrast to many social movements of past eras, there was no prominent,
charismatic leader; instead, each participant contributed his or her particular skills, or simply chipped in
to a general effort. Similarly, there was no hierarchy of knowledge, with movement members contributing
information and performing research according to their abilities. The movement’s entire strategy, and its
ability to proceed in this manner, relied heavily on one key factor: the Internet. Members made full use of
web-based social networking and information-sharing tools. Thus, this study demonstrates how strategic
capacities and the very nature of grassroots movements have been radically transformed by current
technologies.
The other papers in this collection focus on collaborations and tensions not within the community
but between community groups and outsiders working toward similar goals. In Will Pirkey’s case study, a
Hispano community in Colorado worked with environmentalists to defeat an impending large-scale
logging operation. This collaboration, unusual in a context of frequent ideological conflicts (sometimes
violent) between the two stakeholder groups, was possible for four reasons. First, both sets of activists
were able to identify a common enemy in the logging project—a circumstance not found when
environmentalists seek instead to set aside areas of land as no-take zones, restricting local residents’ use
of the resources they contain. Secondly, the environmentalists lived in the communities with which they
were working, developing close relationships based on mutual understanding and trust. Thirdly, the
Hispanos had legal land rights, and finally, the environmental group’s structure was flexible and open
enough to allow respectful collaboration. Ultimately, despite some differences, the groups were largely
able to “hybridize” their diverse discourses and even create hybrid identities, which supported their joint
actions. The community and outsiders shared their distinctive knowledges, thus enhancing the power of
each while also allowing collaborative strategies, at least temporarily.
In contrast, Peter Little provides a case study in which ethnic differences posed unsurmountable
obstacles to collaboration among activists. Facing contamination from the electronics industry, the
residents of Endicott, New York (the birthplace of IBM) began to pressure IBM and the government to
address the corporation’s toxic plume. Rather than providing new connections, strategies, and resources, a
visit from environmental justice (EJ) activists on a national Environmental Justice for All Tour left most
of the Endicott-based activists feeling confused. First, they were unsure that their predominantly white
community shared the concerns of the EJ movement, which center largely around the disproportionate
pollution of communities of people of color. Meanwhile, some activists felt uncomfortable with the
ethnically distinctive discursive style of the EJ activists. This discomfort led to tensions within the
Endicott activist community, with some judging their fellow activists as racist and others arguing that the
EJ approach was simply irrelevant to their own concerns. Little’s paper thus points to the power dynamics
inherent to definitions of environmental problems. While acknowledging that the “outsider” EJ activists
offered a broader foundation for local concerns, local activists also challenged EJ definitions of
environmental justice as heavily steeped in race relations. They thus—ironically, like the AfricanAmerican community described by Checker (this issue)—asserted their right to define their own problems
and decide upon their own approaches to addressing these. Thus, Little shows that different
conceptualizations of similar problems can proscribe collaborative strategies.
6
Conclusions
Each paper in this special issue provides an up-close, detailed analysis of a particular grassroots
group’s responses to an instance of industrial development in the North, and emphasizes the importance
of local particularities in shaping these responses and their outcomes. Nonetheless, stepping back from the
collection allows clear patterns to emerge. While each paper’s conclusions are unique, they coalesce
around a few themes. Together, they provide new insights into the micropolitics of environmental
activism; power/knowledge relations and ways these affect environmental struggles; and the different
strategies that grassroots protestors use, particularly in the contemporary context of rapid global social
change.
In examining grassroots struggles, the papers in this collection discover complexities visible only
through a micropolitical lens. Thus, they caution against the too-common romanticization of the
“grassroots,” or the “community,” which is never a homogeneous unit but always divided and dynamic.
This is clearest in the challenges to the “insider/outsider” divide that forms a backdrop to each case study.
Manipulated by groups with different agendas, or simply a necessary means of ensuring community
solidarity, this flexible distinction is defined in multiple ways but always (deliberately or inevitably)
toward strategic ends. By analyzing localized contests over different understandings of other looselydefined concepts, the papers also challenge and deconstruct presumed monolithic ideologies such as
“environmentalism,” “ethnicity,” “vulnerability,” and “expertise.”
The notion of “expertise,” in turn, brings us to the power/knowledge debates that the articles all
discuss. In every case, grassroots activists were confronted with outsiders claiming to possess “expert”
knowledge. However, they challenged these claims—and concomitant accusations of community
ignorance—with their own expertise: objective knowledge of local particularities and/or subjective
understanding of local plights. Thus, not only the environmental issues themselves, but also the ability to
claim superior knowledge of them, became objects of power struggles. More broadly, these papers show
that “expertise” is never predetermined but always open to multiple, contested definitions. Thus,
“official” knowledge claims do not necessarily produce respected authority, and power does not signify
exclusive abilities to claim superior understanding.
How, then, do the marginalized assert their counter-claims to knowledge? Superficially,
grassroots resistance seems to contain a paradox: how can the disempowered exert power over the
powerful? In the face of corporations’ large-scale power, it seems implausible that anyone trying to resist
the impacts of industrial development—let alone an informal group of local residents, often living in
poverty—could be anything but risible. Indeed, there exist many impediments to grassroots challenges to
corporations, including authoritarian governments, reactionary company policies, and activists’ lack of
material resources. However, this collection of studies shows us that power is not monopolized by large
institutions and does not depend solely on money. Instead, it is fundamentally relational (see Latour
1986; Law 1991). Inherently involving more than one party and often implicating vast networks, power
relations are dynamic and complex, allowing power to be exercised even from marginal, interstitial
spaces. In other words, grassroots groups are not powerless; they simply have different sources of power
(both power over and power to) and must often be highly creative in uncovering and mobilizing that
power.
Not surprisingly, a major and growing source of grassroots power is the network. Networks of
protestors can pool intellectual resources and, through sheer numbers, possess significant clout. Networks
may also include alliances with powerful groups and populations, whether explicit (as with material and
moral support from NGOs) or implicit (as with—sometimes international—public sympathies). Of
course, social, political, economic, and technological changes and developments are affecting
relationships among stakeholders and the strategies they use. The Internet is possibly the most significant
7
contemporary network which, by providing a world-wide, highly accessible means of rapid information
sharing, has radically expanded the forms that debates can take (Castells 1996). This special issue
provides examples of the successful use of the Internet in grassroots struggles, connecting activists,
supporters, and publics at a national or global scale as protestors use this powerful tool to disseminate
counter-discourses.
Finally, by exploring the controversies and complexities inherent to relationships between
environmental action groups and governments, corporations, communities, and international NGOs, the
papers in this collection point the way toward greater mutual understanding among all involved. It is our
hope that this, in turn, may lead to a more acute awareness of potential opportunities for all of these
actors—and perhaps scholar-activists as well—to interact in a more informed fashion toward the
reduction of corporations’ environmental and social harms as well as the protection and regeneration of
the livelihoods and environments of the communities in resistance.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Salvatore Engel di-Mauro and Melissa Checker for comments on an early draft of this paper.
Of course, any errors are exclusively my own responsibility.
8
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