Researching environmental resistance: working through Secondspace and Thirdspace approaches

During the last decade resistance against environmental destruction has spread throughout much of the developed world. Over this period Environmental Direct Action (EDA) has evolved into an inventive and dynamic movement that not only rallies against specific environmental damages, but also the broader political and economic systems that are perceived to facilitate them. With the growth of Environmental Direct Action there has been a concomitant increase in the number wishing to understand and explain the phenomenon. This expansion of academic interest raises two questions: (1) Are conventional academic epistemologies suitable to understand and explain the motivations of and challenges posed by EDA?, and (2) Do the power relations inherent within such approaches facilitate or preclude our opportunities to make sense of this resistance movement? This paper uses experience gained from my own empirical work on EDA in the UK to explore these issues. Beginning with what Soja terms the ‘Secondspace’ approach to social science research, it will focus on the problems posed by issues of positionality and power relations for the study of EDA. The paper will go on to illustrate that, although entailing a number of problems, a ‘Thirdspace’ approach offers some solutions that can secure important insights into this political practice.