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ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW & CASE STUDIES: “We Don't Need to Sell Our Souls”: Scale Focusing and the Politics of the Local in Environmental Justice Activism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 November 2011

Christopher Wetzel ,
Thompson Lozier  and
LucyRose Moller
Christopher Wetzel*
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Sociology, Stonehill College, Easton, Massachusetts
Thompson Lozier
Affiliation:
Law Student, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts
LucyRose Moller
Affiliation:
Volunteer, Stonehill College Extension, Agartala, India
*
Christopher Wetzel, Department of Sociology and Criminology, Stonehill College, 320 Washington Street, Easton, MA 02357; (phone) 508-565-1979; (fax) 508-565-1631; (e-mail) [email protected]
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Abstract

This article analyzes how Stop the Power (STP), an environmental justice social movement organization based in Brockton, Massachusetts, has confronted a well-resourced corporate opponent and a challenging state regulatory process. Drawing on semistructured interviews with key activists, organization-generated documents such as flyers, petitions, videos, and webpages, and articles from local newspapers, we argue that, rather than jump scale, STP has instead engaged in scale focusing. Scale focusing is conceptualized as the process of a movement organization intentionally localizing and particularizing its strategies. STP does scale focusing in three ways: critiquing the local built environment, articulating a geographically bounded collective identity, and deploying community-based strategies such as information dissemination and participating in local electoral politics. Since scale focusing represents a generative contribution to the social movements literature, we conclude by considering the broader implications of this concept.

Environmental Practice 13:396–405 (2011)

Type
Features
Information
Environmental Practice , Volume 13 , Issue 4 , December 2011 , pp. 396 - 405
Copyright
Copyright © National Association of Environmental Professionals 2011

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