This paper aims at putting forward a sub-category of environmental conflict that we call “low-intensity conflict”. After a bibliometric review on how the study of “conflict” is distributed among the Political Science discipline, we identify that conflict is primarily an International Relations’ (IR) object of study, showing ties with terrorism’s studies and already having at its disposal a conception of low-intensity conflicts. On those grounds, we advance our own interpretation of the subcategory of low-intensity environmental conflicts (LIEC) and why it can prove itself useful as an analytical tool. Such a proposal is given flesh using two key frameworks. It is first built through a confrontation with core definitional elements from IR literature, especially its own conception of low-intensity conflict. Some of the latter’s distinctive features bear similarity with our own conception of LIEC: it comprises state-non-state actors conflicts, substantially involves non-and sub-state actors (NSSAs), implies a low level of violence, and happens during peacetime situations. This proximity is examined and questioned. Second, according to Bourg and Whiteside’s typology (2010, 2017), our proposition for a LIEC is rooted in the institutionalist stream of Political Ecology, with a particular focus on its agonistic version. The author also pays attention to link this inscription in Political Ecology to how Political Ecology is recognized in Environmental Peace and Conflict research to contribute to build bridges between sociologically oriented and field-research based works on environmental conflicts and this specific stream of IR literature. The proposition draws on several observations and case studies taking part within the framework of the author’s PhD. The observations are meant to be prolonged, taking place over the course of several months (September 2023 to March 2024) in northern France (E.g., cases of persistent heavy metal pollution, contestations over rock wool plants’ locations, conflict over agricultural practices near a regional national park…). Having a closer look at what we put forward in LIEC, and that we consider often-overlooked dynamics, could allow to question the role of “disruptive confronters” (Marquardt, Fast & Grimm, 2022) in the specific interplay LIEC involves with sectoral and institutional actors (categories they may well cut through). We hypothesize LIEC to display distinct features and trigger distinct dynamics from more intense and overt environmental conflicts, pointing towards more malleable stances, identifications, and coalition possibilities. This perspective could also offer to question the possibility of examining a “contestation governance” avoiding the shortcomings of substitution to state action, co-optation, tokenism, and depoliticization (Marquardt, Fast & Grimm, 2022).
