A spatial account of non-violent environmental extremism in Australia

This chapter analyses non-violent environmental extremism in Australia through a spatial lens. After setting out the general features of environmental activism, it examines the rationale and method of four contemporary movements advocating for climate justice in Australia: Extinction Rebellion, School Strike 4 Climate, #StopAdani and Lock-the-Gate Alliance. In so doing, this piece aims to identify contestation of space as the underlying rationale both for activists’ claims and their methods. It does so drawing on the methods of legal geography, identifying the co-constitution of the legal, the spatial and the social. The State’s contrasting construction of space positions activists as extremists both in the challenge their demands pose to the economic order and in the form of their protest through physical occupation of spaces. In taking an ideological stance itself, the State is unable (or unwilling) to comprehend the rationale for climate protest resulting in an apparently intractable opposition. This chapter concludes that a more nuanced and critical appreciation of environmental activism is warranted to reduce both conflict and the erosion of civil liberties.

© 2023 selection and editorial matter, Elisa Orofino and William Allchorn; individual chapters, the contributors

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