Noi culturi, noi antropologii - Humanitas

and their place within it. The authors go on to argue that
„through this analytic lens, movements are better seen not
as relatively unified actors, but, as multiple sources of cultural
discourses competing to inform the everyday actions
of movement participants“ 371 . This approach to social movements
differs from one that focuses on movement leaders,
for example, as leaders give certain strategic accounts that
indicate a coherence that does not exist on the ground. As
an example of this approach, the authors point to Wendy
Wolford’s study of the Movement of Rural Landless Workers
(MST) in Brazil 372 . While the MST leadership tries to produce
a coherent movement identity, this is not always possible
due to participants’ varied goals, which depend on their
specific historical, economic, and political contexts. Moreover,
while the MST has achieved success at the national and
international levels, in particular places, it has emerged in
contradictory ways. Creating a coherent collective identity
is challenging for most movements, and „a decentered approach…clarifies
some of this complexity by recognizing that
versions of the collective identity of a movement are being
formed in multiple sites“ 373 .
To claim that my shift to a decentered approach was
deliberate would be dishonest; I did this purely out of necessity.
Since my contacts were all so busy, often with
non-environmental activities, and because environmental
projects occurred in fits and starts, I did not choose one
or two groups or projects on which to focus, but instead
continued to interview new contacts, attend any environment-related
meetings I could find, and check in with existing
contacts to ask about new developments. A few months
into my research, in response to my frustrated email, one
of my professors observed that my research sounded very
„decentered“. My initial frustrations at finding „the environmental
movement“ faded as I began to explore the idea of
371. Ibid., p. 97.
372. Wendy Wolford, This land is ours now: Social mobilization and
the meanings of land in Brazil, Duke University Press, Durham, 2010.
373. Holland, Fox and Darrow, op. cit., p. 98.
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