ABSTRACT

This chapter analyzes the discourses of environmental restrictionists using two primary forms of data collection: documents and interviews. First, it explores various restrictionist representations of nature, political community and governance on websites and in publications and media appearances. Second, the chapter discusses conducted interviews with individuals who had publicly voiced restrictionist positions. Discourse analysis seeks to analyze the practices of representation through which various objects are invested with meaning. The chapter identifies three discourses of environmental restrictionism – social nativism, eco-nativism and eco-communitarianism – each of which renders nature intelligible through different epistemological practices and in accordance with different strategies. The eco-communitarian discourse continues to assert that in a period of ecological crisis, 'our' normal political and ethical obligations to immigrants ought to be suspended in order to protect 'America's nature'. In a political environment dominated by neoliberalism, it is easy to see the appeal of nature.