Instructor: Dr. Chiara Milan
The recent years have seen an unprecedented wave of mobilization around the environment and environmental-related issues. Environmental campaigning and ecological concerns have brought together different actors to stage protests and raise their voice for a better environment and the preservation of natural resources. Collective action for the environment has occurred also in societies divided along ethnic lines, where individuals of different background joined their forces to safeguard natural resources. This course aims to provide students with a critical reading of the main debates within the field of collective action in divided societies, with a specific focus on the emergence and development of environmental movements and mobilization for spatial justice. It draws on the literature on social movement studies and on deeply divided societies, with the contribution of scholars, local practitioners and activists engaged in the field. Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) represents a case in point for the study of social movements in divided societies, and in particular of environmental movements, which emerged and diffused nationwide in the last decade. BiH represents in fact a critical and strategic case for the examination and understanding of the dynamics of mobilization in divided societies, at times challenging the existing theoretical assumptions. Over the last decade, contentious collective action took place in BiH in spite of the country presenting a wide range of unfavourable conditions for its occurrence.
We will start by reviewing the key debates on divided societies.
- Session one will be devoted to elaborating on the notion of divide, central concept in the social sciences. In the first session the participants will be acquainted with the different types of cleavages and divides that exist in societies. While extant literature tends to focus on the ethnic divide, we will explore other types of cleavages that subsist in a society.
- Session two will examine the implication and challenges of institutional arrangements in governing divided societies. We will try to understand the main dilemmas concerning the representation of minorities, non-dominant communities, and non-aligned citizens in power-sharing systems.
- Session three will delve into the ways in which ordinary people mobilize to challenge, at times overcoming, divides from the bottom-up, demonstrating that in divided societies people may ascribe to broader civic affiliations and imagine alternative forms of political community. We will thus look at the recent scholarly works addressing various aspects of collective action in divided societies, from the formation of collective identities to the emergence of environmental and right to the city movements. The session will thus focus on civic mobilizations in divided settings, with a particular attention to environmental movements and the discussion of empirical cases in different geographical areas, with a specific attention to the former Yugoslav region.
- Session four will elaborate more in detail the campaigns for spatial justice struggle and the relevance of urban commons in sparking social mobilization in divided societies, looking also at existing cases of common governance in urban and rural areas that cross ethnic divisions. This session will look at how environmental movements emerged in rural areas to protect the commons (such as rivers), challenging the view that cities and the urban space constitute the main place of resistance.
- Session five will explore the possibilities of participatory and deliberative democratic practices as a possible way forward to overcome divisions, focusing on their importance in overcoming existing cleavages.
- Session six will conclude the course with a wrap-up activity consisting in a practical exercise of simulation (e.g. citizens’ assemblies, deliberative mini-publics). Throughout the course, in-class discussion will be enriched by lectures of scholars, practitioners and activists engaged in local, bottom-up environmental initiatives that challenge institutional norms, practices and policies that legitimize and preserve divides.
The course will consist of:
- sessions over four weeks (January 9 - 30, 2023)
- a virtual excursion that will include interaction with environmental activist organizations
The classes will be based on an online model.
