Two Resisting Shell in Ireland: making and remaking alliances between communities, movements and activists
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Hilary Darcy
Abstract
The 15-year-long resistance to Shell’s pipeline in Rossport, Ireland became a strategic and symbolic site for resistance to neoliberalism and the petroleum industry, combining a community-based environmental justice struggle with a range of left social movements and international ecological activists. The movement faced state violence and media demonisation as well as divisions within the community, tensions between ecological and redistributive priorities and instrumentalisation by some political parties. Despite this the campaign was unusually long, forced substantial changes to state policy and contributed to anti-austerity alliance formation and popular learning processes in resisting fracking, as well as raising the political and financial cost of such projects. Its eventual defeat had more to do with the balance of forces against it than with internal difficulties. This chapter highlights the importance of sustained popular mobilisation, learning through action, counter expertise and alliance formation as key elements needed to bring about a better world.
Abstract
The 15-year-long resistance to Shell’s pipeline in Rossport, Ireland became a strategic and symbolic site for resistance to neoliberalism and the petroleum industry, combining a community-based environmental justice struggle with a range of left social movements and international ecological activists. The movement faced state violence and media demonisation as well as divisions within the community, tensions between ecological and redistributive priorities and instrumentalisation by some political parties. Despite this the campaign was unusually long, forced substantial changes to state policy and contributed to anti-austerity alliance formation and popular learning processes in resisting fracking, as well as raising the political and financial cost of such projects. Its eventual defeat had more to do with the balance of forces against it than with internal difficulties. This chapter highlights the importance of sustained popular mobilisation, learning through action, counter expertise and alliance formation as key elements needed to bring about a better world.
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents vii
- List of figures ix
- Series Editors’ Preface Rethinking Community Development xi
- Preface xiii
- Acknowledgements xv
- Notes on contributors xvii
- Abbreviations xxiii
- Community, development and popular struggles for environmental justice 1
- Resisting Shell in Ireland: making and remaking alliances between communities, movements and activists 15
- ‘No tenemos armas pero tenemos dignidad’: learning from the civic strike in Buenaventura, Colombia 29
- No pollution and no Roma in my backyard: class and race in framing local activism in Laborov, eastern Slovakia 53
- Tackling waste in Scotland: incineration, business and politics vs community activism 69
- An unfractured line: an academic tale of self-reflective social movement learning in the Nova Scotia anti-fracking movement 83
- ‘Mines come to bring poverty’: extractive industry in the life of the people in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa 101
- Ecological justice for Palestine 117
- Learning and teaching: reflections on an environmental justice school for activists in South Africa 135
- The environment as a site of struggle against settler-colonisation in Palestine 153
- Communities resisting environmental injustice in India: philanthrocapitalism and incorporation of people’s movements 173
- Grassroots struggles to protect occupational and environmental health 189
- Conclusion 211
- Index 219
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents vii
- List of figures ix
- Series Editors’ Preface Rethinking Community Development xi
- Preface xiii
- Acknowledgements xv
- Notes on contributors xvii
- Abbreviations xxiii
- Community, development and popular struggles for environmental justice 1
- Resisting Shell in Ireland: making and remaking alliances between communities, movements and activists 15
- ‘No tenemos armas pero tenemos dignidad’: learning from the civic strike in Buenaventura, Colombia 29
- No pollution and no Roma in my backyard: class and race in framing local activism in Laborov, eastern Slovakia 53
- Tackling waste in Scotland: incineration, business and politics vs community activism 69
- An unfractured line: an academic tale of self-reflective social movement learning in the Nova Scotia anti-fracking movement 83
- ‘Mines come to bring poverty’: extractive industry in the life of the people in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa 101
- Ecological justice for Palestine 117
- Learning and teaching: reflections on an environmental justice school for activists in South Africa 135
- The environment as a site of struggle against settler-colonisation in Palestine 153
- Communities resisting environmental injustice in India: philanthrocapitalism and incorporation of people’s movements 173
- Grassroots struggles to protect occupational and environmental health 189
- Conclusion 211
- Index 219
