| "New-social-movement" theorists assume that, in advanced industrial societies, social movement actors are motivated by desires for intrinsic social-psychological gratification rather than extrinsic political-economic resources. These new meanings and motivations for activism are conceptualized as collective identity, autonomy, and solidarity. They are expressed symbolically in the ideological, organizational, cultural, and political forms of a movement. But new-social-movement theory often suffers from a paucity of empirical data to explicate its abstract concepts. The dissertation addresses this gap between theory and data through an ethnographic analysis of Earth First! activists from the 1980s to the present.;The research findings indicate that Earth First! activists express an "ecological postmodern" consciousness in their environmental philosophy and social-psychology Activists' identity motives exhibit holist, organicist, and biocentrist paradigms, which frame an ecological worldview that counters the dominant paradigms of the industrial worldview. Earth First! activists also express an "eco-anarchist" consciousness in their organizational forms and processes. Their autonomy motives exhibit ecological, anarchist, and feminist principles that counter the dominant technocratic, industrial, and patriarchal discourses. Finally, Earth First! activists express an "ecotopian" consciousness in their postindustrial cultural practices and bioregional political projects. Activists' solidarity motives are evident in their intentional communities, alternative lifestyles, and political alliances that prefigure a postindustrial, ecological utopian society.;The dissertation presents results from an in-depth qualitative field study of the philosophy and practice of the Earth First! movement in the United States. Data was collected by utilizing methods of participant observation, unstructured interviews, and primary source document analysis. Data was analyzed using the concepts of identity, autonomy, and solidarity borrowed from new-social-movement theory, supplemented by social-constructionist assumptions from symbolic interactionist theory as well as a concept of "symbolic resources" inspired by resource mobilization theory. The analysis focuses on interpreting the symbolic content of activists' beliefs and behaviors, conceptualized as collective consciousness-in-action. |
