Situating class in workplace and community environmentalism
Working-class environmentalism and deindustrialisation in Porto Marghera, Venice
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3252838 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Lorenzo Feltrin (0000-0002-1965-6363, University of Birmingham, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 70 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 1141-1162 |
| Publication date | 2022-11-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Sociological Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0038-0261 • E-ISSN: 1467-954X |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/00380261221106895 |
| OpenAlex | W4283811185 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 8 |
| References cited | 22 |
This article explores the challenges faced by working-class environmentalism through the case study of the industrial decline of Porto Marghera's petrochemical complex, in Venice, Italy. It argues that there is a class dimension in environmentalist struggles in both workplaces and communities. Workplace-centred struggles are conflicts over the conditions under which workers produce commodities or reproduce labour-power, while community-centred struggles are conflicts over the conditions of workers' own reproduction. The distinction between workplace-centred and community-centred struggles is based on three theoretical expansions: (1) a conception of working-class based on dispossession rather than exploitation; (2) a conception of work including both production and reproduction; (3) a conception of working-class interests encompassing both the workplace and the community. The article thus contributes to environmental labour studies with an original analysis of the interplay between workplace-centred and community-centred working-class environmentalist struggles. In Porto Marghera, in the 1990s and 2000s, the community-centred and workplace-centred working-class environmentalist camps diverged over chlorine-based production, with the former demanding a just transition away from chlorine and the latter a just transition within it. While the rival mobilisations limited damage to health and the environment on the one hand, and to chlorine workers' livelihoods on the other hand, chlorine-based production was closed without full environmental remediation and without the relocation of all its workers to comparable jobs. The article concludes that the convergence between workplace and community organising is a critical step in the construction of alternatives to the jobs versus environment dilemma
Class analysis · Environmentalism · Livelihood · Political science · Politics · Reproduction · Sociology · Working class · Ecology · Environmental Justice and Health Disparities · Gender Studies · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Law · Water Governance and Infrastructure
The structural power of workers in influencing energy transitions
Labor regimes, long-distance commuting, and the spaces of production and social reproduction in large-scale mining
“Militant Ecologies”
Raum für Gegenmacht
Noxious deindustrialisation and extractivism
Path development politics
Jobs vs the environment
Repair and upcycling
Reading Capital Politically
Workers and Trade Unions for Climate Solidarity
Women and Work
The Silent Revolution
Capitalism in the web of life
The Power of Women and the Subversion of the Community
Rethinking Racial Capitalism
Class Counts
The Meanings of Work
Global labour unions and just transition to a green economy
Working-class ecology and union politics
The labour–nature relationship
The role of working-class communities and the slow violence of toxic pollution in environmental health conflicts
A Value Theory of Inclusion
Time, labor, and social domination
Social reproduction and politics
The work-technology nexus and working-class environmentalism
| Citations per year | 2.67 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2023 - 2026 (4) |
| Highly cited | No |