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<p>This paper investigates how one could envision a discursive mobilization process to transform protest movements into agents that help reconstruct the universities as agents supporting material mobilizations leading to ecological reconstruction. After reviewing universities’ ecological footprints, the author shows how theories of mobilization and conjunctures could contribute to understanding how this transformation could occur. <italic>Discursive mobilizations</italic> advance values or ideas but stop short of innovation and production system changes. <italic>Material mobilizations</italic> affect deployment of human, technological, industrial and financial resources. <italic>Conjunctures</italic> involve linkages of political activity to spaces implicated in both kinds of mobilizations in a given historical time frame. The study shows many nations having both extensive climate activism and concentrations of university students creating a possibility for greening education centers based on various models for doing so. Yet, two key problems emerge. First, some nations lag in climate activism. Second, interest in a Green Deal or Green New Deal does not always match the level of attention to leading activist Greta Thunberg. The paper illustrates how such problems can be addressed by university-based campaigns linking activist cohorts, mobilization supporting green conversion of higher education and solidaristic, mutual aid exchanges among regions.</p>
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This paper investigates how one could envision a discursive mobilization process to transform protest movements into agents that help reconstruct the universities as agents supporting material mobilizations leading to ecological reconstruction. After reviewing universities’ ecological footprints, the author shows how theories of mobilization and conjunctures could contribute to understanding how this transformation could occur. Discursive mobilizations advance values or ideas but stop short of innovation and production system changes. Material mobilizations affect deployment of human, technological, industrial and financial resources. Conjunctures involve linkages of political activity to spaces implicated in both kinds of mobilizations in a given historical time frame. The study shows many nations having both extensive climate activism and concentrations of university students creating a possibility for greening education centers based on various models for doing so. Yet, two key problems emerge. First, some nations lag in climate activism. Second, interest in a Green Deal or Green New Deal does not always match the level of attention to leading activist Greta Thunberg. The paper illustrates how such problems can be addressed by university-based campaigns linking activist cohorts, mobilization supporting green conversion of higher education and solidaristic, mutual aid exchanges among regions.

From the “Greta Thunberg Effect” to Green Conversion of Universities: The Reconstructive Praxis of Discursive Mobilizations

Discourse and Communication for Sustainable Education

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

This paper investigates how one could envision a discursive mobilization process to transform protest movements into agents that help reconstruct the...

From the “Greta Thunberg Effect” to Green Conversion of Universities: The Reconstructive Praxis of Discursive Mobilizations

Published Online: May 29, 2021

Page range: 121 - 139

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/dcse-2021-0009

Keywords
conjunctures, discursive mobilization, Fridays for Future, Green Deal, material mobilization, strategic interventions, uneven development

© 2021 Jonathan Michael Feldman, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

From the “Greta Thunberg Effect” to Green Conversion of Universities: The Reconstructive Praxis of Discursive Mobilizations

Published Online: May 29, 2021

Page range: 121 - 139

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/dcse-2021-0009

Keywordsconjunctures, discursive mobilization, Fridays for Future, Green Deal, material mobilization, strategic interventions, uneven development

© 2021 Jonathan Michael Feldman, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
conjunctures, discursive mobilization, Fridays for Future, Green Deal, material mobilization, strategic interventions, uneven development