Journal of Ecological Anthropology Volume 8 Issue 1 Volume 8, Issue 1 (2004) Article 4 2004 Who is an Environmentalist? The Polysemy of Environmentalist Terms and Correlated Environmental Actions Danielle Tesch University of Delaware Willett Kempton University of Delaware Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/jea Recommended Citation Tesch, Danielle and Kempton, Willett. "Who is an Environmentalist? The Polysemy of Environmentalist Terms and Correlated Environmental Actions." Journal of Ecological Anthropology 8, no. 1 (2004): 67-83. Available at: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/jea/vol8/iss1/4 This Research Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Anthropology at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Ecological Anthropology by an authorized editor of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Vol. 8 2004 Tesch and Kempton / Who is an Environmentalist? 67 Who is an Environmentalist? The Polysemy of Environmentalist Terms and Correlated Environmental Actions DANIELLE TESCH WILLETT KEMPTON Abstract Conducting and interpreting an interview is more problematic when informants use a word that has multiple meanings and interpretations. In this case, the problematic word, “environmentalist,” labeled several socially- defined identities that were central to the study. The analysis is based on interviews with 156 members of 20 diverse environmental groups (and two comparison groups) in the Eastern United States, including their views on