ABSTRACT

This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses new forms of civic participation in the environmental sector examined from a comparative ethnographic perspective. In the last four decades environmentalism, the study of social and political dynamics of civic movements that develop under the common aim of promoting an ecological discourse has become a crucial and extremely timely research theme. The main goal of this book is to provide a new characterization of social and political movements, characterized as civil society that departs from environmentalist concerns and objectives. All the case studies analysed in the book have the same origin in common, that is structural development projects funded by the EU and within far-reaching EU policies; these movements all have to address arenas of political interaction that are wider than local and national settings.