Attitudes of Young German Activists and the Environmental Question: Negotiating Identities and Political Priorities

Concerns about environmental decay and climate change have become increasingly ubiquitous in the media and in political discourses. Environmentalism has even been considered as “a new metanarrative” (Daniels & Endfield 2009, Harper 2001) and in Germany it has been said to enjoy supra-partisan consensus (Uekötter 2015). Still, the literature also suggests that the politicisation of environmentalism has not necessarily lead to unified discourses but to different (and even contending) narratives (Schoenefeld 2005, Eder & Kousis 2001). This article explores the ways in which young activists are positioning themselves in the environmental discussions, the kind of narratives they are articulating, the actions they are adopting and the ways in which they are reconciling their own environmental views with their identities and political positions. The study is based on 28 qualitative interviews conducted between May 2018 and January 2019 with young activists who are affiliated to different collectives: political parties, an environmental organisation, a solidary economy collective, a feminist organisation, an independent civic centre, a migrants´ organisation, a trade union and a university´s student union. The initial findings indicate that environmental protection is regarded as a crucial political challenge by all activists and was the mobilising factor for at least half of them. Still, the narratives about climate change, loss of biodiversity and other environmental problems are far from unified and the discussions around environmentalism ellucidate the underlying discussions about legitimate repertoires of actions and discourses. Activists´ environmental narratives include varied positions and frames like inter-generational justice, capitalism critique, individual responsibility and conscious consumerism, and the need for developing green technologies. The analysis also suggests that activists affiliated to more traditional organisations (like political parties and trade unions) considered that their organisations could be more committed to environmental protection and saw this as an issue where the organisation has a ´generational divide´. Moreover, some of the activists in smaller grass-roots organisations were more inclined to defend personal responsibility and conscious consumerism. The interviews for this article were conducted in Cologne as part of the EURYKA Project (Funded by the Horizon 2020 grant agreement No 727025.).