Divergent environmentalisms, conflicting counter-hegemonies: Lessons from the rights of nature movement

Abstract

Within current literature on social movements, the existence and interrelations of multiple counter-hegemonies remains heavily undertheorised. Indeed, while the existence of such phenomena is acknowledged, in as much as scholars recognise that hegemony and counter-hegemony exist in plurality and in variegated forms, attention to the interactions between simultaneously existing counter-hegemonies is underexplored. In this article I draw attention to the ways in which multiple counter-hegemonies exist within a single social movement, and how those counter-hegemonies come into conflict with one another. Specifically, I show how one counter-hegemonic struggle comes to reproduce the hegemony against which the other is fighting. I situate this discussion within a case study of the rights of nature movement, operating in variegated forms within Ecuador and the United Nations’ Harmony with Nature Dialogues.