Primitive dissidents: Earth Liberation Front and the making of a radical anthropology

This study examines a set of key discourses surrounding the actions, ideology, and motivations of a self-described green anarchist network known as the Earth Liberation Front (ELF). The bulk of data collected was accessed via the Internet, including anonymous interviews, online zines, news media coverage, and other sources. The analysis begins by suggesting possible positionings of the ELF in the context of American environmentalism, anarchism, and historical geography, including an outline of the relationship between ELF actions and the cultural landscape of the western United States. This if followed by a survey of the dispersed, leaderless, and autonomous patterns through which the ELF communicates and executes its actions, as well as a consideration of the relationship between ELF networking, it's compatibilities with the Internet, and the ways in which it differs from the Marxist-influenced, mass movement patterns of most other environmentally-focused activist groups. ELF motivations and identity---and the ways in which they are informed by their interpretations of anthropological research---are then taken into consideration, including explorations of how discourses of deep ecology, anarcho-primitivism, wilderness, and violence are intertwined with one another and the discipline of anthropology to substantiate the activist agenda of the ELF. A critical part of this latter analysis includes a consideration of the educational canons of anthropology, its popular perception, and the complexities of appropriating the primitive mythologies that originated in the discipline. I then explore the larger social role of the ELF through analyses of discourses generated through the mass media, especially those that are intended to incite sympathy and fear. This is followed by an explication of the ways in which discourses surrounding the ELF and its actions are used to influence public opinion. I conclude by considering how anthropology might contribute to understanding the ELF within the context of ethnographic research on anarchic cultures, as well as entertaining how the ELF might gain greater control of the ways in which their actions are interpreted through more careful considerations of cultural ecologies and their relationship to consumption and environmental degradation.