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Collective agency, non-human causality and environmental social movements : a case study of the Australian 'landcare movement'
This article explores the implications for social movement theory of recent work in the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) that explicitly rejects dualisms between society and nature, structure and agency, and macro and micro-levels of analysis. In doing so it argues that SSK offers: (1) a theoretically useful definition of collective agency as an achievement of interaction; that is (2) sensitive to the influence of both humans and non-humans in the networks of the social; and (3) provides practical tools with which to analyse dynamics of power and agency in the ordering of networks. Applying this framework to a case study of the Australian 'landcare movement' it is argued that a range of practices have been used to enact 'action at a distance' over Australian farmers and to 'order' agricultural practices in ways that are consistent with corporate interests while minimizing opposition from conservation organizations otherwise highly critical of chemical agriculture.
Funding
Category 1 - Australian Competitive Grants (this includes ARC, NHMRC)
History
Volume
40Issue
1Start Page
41End Page
58Number of Pages
18ISSN
1440-7833Location
Thousand Oaks, CA, USAPublisher
Sage PublicationsLanguage
en-ausPeer Reviewed
- Yes
Open Access
- No
External Author Affiliations
Centre for Social Science Research;Era Eligible
- Yes