Ideological Diversity and Alliance Building in Social Movements: the Campaign Against Shell in Ireland

IDEOLOGICAL DIVERSITY AND ALLIANCE BUILDING IN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST SHELL IN IRELAND ST.JOHN Ó DONNABHÁIN Submitted in part fulfilment of the requirements for the MA in Community Education, Equality and Social Activism Departments of Adult & Community Education and Sociology National University of Ireland, Maynooth 2014 Supervisor: Dr Laurence Cox ABSTRACT This thesis asks the question: How can social movement alliances manage to acknowledge and work across difference in conflict situations? It seeks to add to deeper understandings of movements by examining a complex multi-group movement context in which complicated and very layered tensions were at issue. It seeks to investigate these issues through a case study of tensions between movement actors within the campaign against Shell in North West Mayo, Ireland, between English ecological activists, Dublin and Cork Shell to Sea groups, and Irish members of the Rossport Solidarity Camp. The issue of how to acknowledge and work with difference is a hugely important one for the building and maintenance of contemporary movement alliances for practitioners, and is also an area of interest for social movement scholars. Connected with this, alliance is largely accepted as increasing a movement’s chance of success, and is usually something which is also seen as desirable by movement actors. I undertook my research within a Participatory Action Research (PAR) frame. As such, my research was a highly involved process, within the frames of looking at dynamics of alliance formation, and saw its main themes emerge from the research participants. The tensions that emerged in the campaign were organised around a discourse of colonialism put forward by members of Dublin and Cork Shell to Sea, but the issues also encompassed differences between ecological and class-based ideologies, as well as significant differences between political cultures of direct action, and ones based around political organising. This work is done with the aim of making movement participants intelligible to each other, to widen movement perspectives, and it attempts to begin a process of dialogue and discussion between actors in the campaign against Shell, who have struggled with these issues. i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Firstly, I would like to thank my supervisor Laurence Cox for his engagement, deep interest and analysis, and for always pushing me to take the research further. I would also like to thank everyone involved in the CEESA programme for an excellent year, with lots of different perspectives and new ways of looking at familiar problems. Thanks to Cristina Flesher Fominaya for a very interesting debate, and for lots of new thoughts. My deep gratitude is also extended to the research participants, who were very generous with their time and who made huge efforts to grapple with tensions that are often politically and emotionally challenging. Thank you to Jeff, Benjamin, Tony, Kelly-Anne, Claire, Cathal and John – your voices were invaluable in getting through this thesis. My housemates Amy, Fergal and Richael were always understanding and supportive, as were my quasi-housemates Fergal and Finbar. Among many good and encouraging friends, Marianna stands out for her positivity and solidarity. Thank you to my wonderful family, who kept me going from near and far, and to my brilliant proof-readers, Mick and Josie. Finally, and most importantly, thank you to Siân for your positivity, formatting, care, proof-reading, support, analysis and for keeping me on the tracks when derailment felt inevitable. There is no way that I would have made it through this without you – your love and care are hugely appreciated. Thank you. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract i Acknowledgements ii Chapters 1. Introduction Part I 1 1.1 Background Information 2 1.2 My assumptions 3 1.3 Use of terminology 4 1.4 Why does this matter? Personal aspects 5 1.5 Why this matters intellectually and for movements 6 1.6 Limitations placed on the scope of the research 6 1.7 Structure of the thesis 7 2. Introduction Part II 9 2.1 Explanation of groups 9 2.2 The transition period 10 2.3 Between the social and the individual 11 2.4 What is ‘community’? 11 2.5 Outline of the tensions examined in this thesis 12 3. Literature Review 16 3.1 Social Movements and Collective Identity 16 3.2 One theory for examining different collective identities 18 3.3 Processes of attempting to work in alliance across difference 19 3.4 Boundary-making 20 3.5 Red/green debate 21 iii 3.6 International Solidarity activism 23 3.7 Postcolonial theory 25 3.8 Insights from feminism 26 3.9 Emotions 27 4. Methodology 29 4.1 Data collection 29 4.2 The connection between my role as a participant and my data collection 30 4.3 Consent 31 4.4 Follow-up 31 4.5 Deciding on the topic and creating the question-themes 32 4.6 Considerations of the context in which the interviews took place 32 4.7 Analysis 33 4.8 Challenges and changes emerging from this process 34 4.9 Negotiating my position close to participants in the research, and the challenges this brings 35 4.10 My positionality 36 4.10.1 Campaign problems experienced in a personal way 36 4.10.2 My experience of burnout 37 4.11 The impact of my positionality on the interviews, and my roles in current debates 38 4.12 The importance of framing 39 4.13 ‘I’m sick to death of liberals telling our stories’ 40 4.14 My choice of the PAR frame 41 4.15 Intellectuals and Movement Intellectuals 42 4.16 Difficulties experienced due to my past experiences in the campaign 43 4.17 Acknowledging and struggling with my biases 43 iv 4.18 Dealing with outlying perspectives 44 4.19 Conclusion 44 4.20 What Next? 45 5. Findings 46 5.1 Discourses around colonialism 46 5.1.1 Examples of problematic expression by English activists at the RSC 46 5.1.2 Assumptions of ignorance 47 5.1.3 Feelings of being patronised 48 5.1.4 Romanticisation 49 5.2 Colonial after-effects, historical amnesia 50 5.2.1 Very low levels of awareness of difference by English activists in Ireland 50 5.2.2 Tension, and ‘nationalism’ 51 5.3 Further cultural differences 52 5.4 Countering and changing the colonialism discourse 52 5.4.1 Responses from Irish members of Rossport Solidarity Camp (RSC) 53 5.5 Responses from English activists on the after-effects colonialism 54 5.5.1 Acceptance of a problematic engagement with the campaign by many English people 54 5.5.2 A double movement of acceptance and changing the discourse around colonialism 55 5.6 Questioning a colonialism narrative which is seen to be simplistic 57 5.6.1 ‘Republican agenda’ underplaying the achievements of the campaign 58 5.7 An alternative interpretation of the tensions – RSC different to DC 59 5.7.1 ‘From a living on the camp perspective’ 59 5.7.2 Ecology prioritised over money 60 v 5.7.3 Ecological politics poorly understood, and not accepted 61 5.8 Different political cultures 62 5.8.1 Different political backgrounds 62 5.8.2 Ecological politics connected to colonialism discourse 63 5.9 English activists’ views of the place of ecology in the campaign 64 5.9.1 Leave it in the ground 64 5.9.2 The place of the state and countering DC, from an ecological perspective 65 5.9.3 Lack of respect for ecological views 66 5.10 A significant change in context around the time of the transition period 66 5.10.1 Distance between the cities and the RSC in later years 66 5.10.2 An alternative narrative of why the camp changed – contextualizing the transition period 68 5.11 Direct action culture in the campaign 70 5.11.1 Two very different views on direct action 70 5.11.2 Direct action culture seen as problematic by DC – two different views on political organising 71 5.12 Lessons Learned 73 5.12.1 Problems with publicity tours to the UK 74 5.12.2 Lulls in the campaign 75 5.13 Conclusion 76 6. Discussion 77 6.1 Contested ideas of ‘the local community’ 78 6.1.1 How was community seen by these groups? 78 6.1.2 What is the local community, what is solidarity with them? 78 6.1.3 Romanticisation of the local community and the area – Ideas of ‘the countryside’ 80 vi 6.1.4 Difficulties caused by romanticisation 80 6.2 Political difference influencing definitions of solidarity 82 6.2.1 A less defined idea of solidarity 83 6.2.2 Change over time – different impressions of changing solidarity 85 6.2.3 A contrary view, ‘from a living on camp perspective’ 85 6.2.4 Redefinition of the campaign and of solidarity in a new context 87 6.3 Emotion as a prism to understand the situation better 89 6.3.1 Feelings of being dismissed 89 6.3.2 Under threat 90 6.3.3 Physical distance 91 6.3.4 Unity in busyness, or sweeping things under the carpet 91 6.3.5 Deep running tensions suppressed 92 6.3.6 A clear and unchanging vision 93 6.4 How dysfunction worked 94 6.4.1 The national campaign 94 6.5 Different collective identities 96 6.5.1 Principle vs. strategy 97 6.5.2 Media orientation 98 6.5.3 Importance of direct action 99 6.6 Political diversity as a way beyond these differences? 100 6.7 Understandings of colonialism in the campaign 101 6.7.1 Republican backgrounds and understandings of politics 102 6.8 Different positions of later Irish campers on the issue of colonialism 103 6.8.1 Similarities with English activists 103 6.8.2 Differences between Irish and English ecological activist 104 6.8.3 Bonds created between ecological activists, but with DC 105 vii 6.8.4 English ecological activists’ reaction to the ‘blurring’ of issues 106 6.8.5 Rejection of criticism 106 7.

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