Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Environmental direct action has been a major site for the revival of anarchist political culture since the 1970s. In tandem, a diverse body of ecoanarchist thought has emerged in response to the environmental crisis. In Germany and France, mobilizations against nuclear energy in the 1970s provided the major vehicle of continuity for the radical surge of 1968, and formed a laboratory for direct action tactics and autonomous organization. In the United States, anti-nuclear campaigns turned toward direct action in 1976 with the Clamshell Alliance's occupations of the planned site of the Seabrook reactor in New Hampshire. The occupation inspired similar direct action groups nationwide, including the Abalone Alliance in California, where anarchist eco-feminists including Starhawk (Miriam Simos, b. 1951) had a prominent role in imbuing its political culture with direct democracy, non-violence, and an earth-based spirituality. Eco-feminism was also influential in the European and American anti-militarist movements of the 1980s (at Greenham Common, Seneca Falls, Pantex), where connections were made between a militarized culture, poverty, and environmental destruction as manifestations of patriarchal contempt for life. Ecological, feminist anti-militarism expressed an anarchist critique of domination as such, stressing an inexorable connection between the domination of nature and domination ... log in or subscribe to read full text