The University of Connecticut’s political science department welcomed guest speaker Joseph Brown for a presentation on his upcoming book, “For the People and the Land: Direct Action Environmental Justice” on Thursday, Nov. 21.
Brown is an associate professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts Boston. His book examines “environmental politics as they intersect with social issues,” he said. In particular, he focuses on racial justice and Indigenous politics. The direct actions he explores are related to anti-pipeline and forest defense movements.
For his research, Brown conducted about 50 interviews and observed two research sites: the Wet’suwet’en territory in Canada and the Atlanta Forest in Georgia. Although he began his research with environmentalism in mind, he quickly found that the actors within these movements don’t define themselves as environmentalists.
“I wanted to interview people about why they choose direct action, how they choose particular tactics, what they expect to gain from confronting pipeline companies directly,” he said. After spending time with the people at these sites, Brown quickly understood that he had to approach his topic in a different manner and with a different mindset.
“The final area where the original research plan came off the rails is when I got to the Wet’suwet’en territory and started talking to land defenders,” he said. They told me they’re not environmentalists. That’s why I talked about these things as environmental justice, which I think is a characterization that has some grounding and literature on Indigenous land defense and resistance to pipelines and other extractive projects.”
His time at the Wet’suwet’en territory allowed him to explore the ways in which the hereditary chiefs of the Wet’suwet’en Nation have resisted Canada’s Coastal GasLink pipeline since 2010.
Their primary tactics have been blockades at crucial access points and camps, or court battles.
“There’ve been various tactics that they’ve tried in in the interest of trying to prevent this pipeline from transiting their territory without their consent,” he said. “The most high-profile stuff has been blockades or physically getting in the way of the pipeline so it can’t be built. But also, things like court battles, challenging permits, challenging the companies involved, challenging the Canadian government and its assertive right to operate on the territory, which actually hasn’t ever been seceded and there’s no treaty in place.”
The second case study is the Stop Cop City campaign in Atlanta. There a community movement has been trying to stop the construction of a $90 million police training facility in Greater Atlanta. The city already has a tense relationship with law enforcement, and the movement argues the facility will devastate a previously forested 380-acre tract of land in the Atlanta Forest.
Their tactics vary but include forest occupation through treehouses, riots, arson and petitions, according to Brown.
“The Atlanta Police Foundation wanted to build and still does want to build the facility, which is derisively nicknamed ‘Cop City’ by its opponents,” he said. “It would include a simulated urban environment to rehearse riot control tactics, which is not especially popular in the wake of the 2020 racial justice uprising, it doesn’t have a lot of support in the community near the forest.”
The consensus he gained from both case studies is that they consider property damage to be nonviolent behavior. Neither movement condones violence or harming the individuals involved.
Brown shared unfortunate news that an activist he interviewed in the Stop Cop City Campaign was killed by police, and 61 are facing RICO/terrorism charges. Because of the tense situation in Atlanta, Brown could not use participant observation as he did with the Wet’suwet’en Nation for fear of also being arrested and charged by police.
Another aspect both sites share is that they are ambivalent about environmentalism, and they see their struggles as broader. Brown mentioned Chief Geltiy during his time at the Wet’suwet’en territory and presented a quote from him.
“What does it mean to be an environmentalist? Because I think we’re just living off the land like our ancestors have,” he said.
Atlanta’s struggles stem not from an environmentalist standpoint, but one of racial injustices and police brutality. A Stop Cop City activist he interviewed, Isshin, commented on the disparity between white environmentalists and their group.
“This is a little joke I make,” he said. “It’s almost like white people are coming in and through environmental work, they’re low-key gentrifying this forest.”
Going back to the purpose of Brown’s book, he wanted to explore why these groups choose direct action, rather than indirect action. The answers his interviews gave can be separated into three categories: instrumental logic, emergency and world-building.
The first rationale he came across is that people are tired of not being heard and are willing to escalate. The second refers to the idea that these issues are existential emergencies, and it’s mostly found in younger people. The last rationale says that indirect actions appeal to authority and therefore affirm their status and power.
Although these reasons seem unaligned with environmentalism, Brown says these groups work together in many situations because they require each other’s skill sets and resources.