Liberation psychology

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Liberation psychology or liberation social psychology is an approach to psychology that aims to actively understand the psychology of oppressed and impoverished communities by conceptually and practically addressing the oppressive sociopolitical structure in which they exist. The central concepts of liberation psychology include: conscientization; realismo-crítico; de-ideologized reality; a coherently social orientation; the preferential option for the oppressed majorities, and methodological eclecticism.

History

Emergence

The core ideas of liberation psychology emerged in Latin America in the 1970s in response to criticisms of traditional psychology, social psychology specifically. Psychology was criticised for its 1) value neutrality; 2) assertion of universality; 3) societal irrelevance.

1. View of science as neutral – The idea that science was devoid of moral elements was considered a flawed framework.
2. Assertion of universality – Psychological theories were being produced based on research conducted primarily with white, middle class, undergraduate males. Liberationists questioned the notion that such principles were universal and therefore applicable to all individuals without regard to the consideration of contextual factors.
3. Societal irrelevance – Psychology was viewed as failing to generate knowledge that could address social inequalities.

In response to these criticisms, psychologists sought to create a psychological science that addressed social inequalities both in theory and practical application. It is important to note that liberation psychology is not an area of psychology akin to clinical, developmental, or social psychology. However, it is more of a framework that aims to reconstruct psychology taking into account the perspective of the oppressed (Martín-Baró's "new interlocutor") so the discipline ceases its (often unwitting) complicity with the structures that perpetuate domination, oppression and inequality. Generally, people using this framework would not call themselves "liberation psychologists", although this term is sometimes used to refer to them.

The term "liberation psychology" (or psicología de la liberación) may have first appeared in print in 1976. It was later brought into widespread use by Ignacio Martín-Baró. A number of other Latin American social psychologists have also developed and promoted the approach, including Martiza Montero (Venezuela), Ignacio Dobles (Costa Rica), Bernardo Jiménez Dominguez (Colombia/Mexico), Jorge Mario Flores (Mexico), Edgar Barrero (Colombia) and Raquel Guzzo (Brazil) among others.

Founder

The genesis of liberation psychology began amongst a body of psychologists in Latin America in the 1970s. Ignacio Martín-Baró is credited as the founder of liberation psychology, and it was further developed by others.

Martín-Baró was a Spanish-born Jesuit priest and social psychologist who dedicated his work to addressing the needs of oppressed groups in Latin America, and ultimately was assassinated as a result of his work. His project of constructing a psychology relevant to the oppressed majorities of the American continent was therefore terminated prematurely. The collection of some of his articles in the collection Writings for a Liberation Psychology is a seminal text in the field that discusses the role of psychology as socially transformative. Most of his work still remains untranslated into English. His two major textbooks, Social Psychology from Central America, and his other books are published by a small University publisher, UCA editores in El Salvador with the consequence that the breadth and depth of his work is not well known even in Latin America.

Key concepts

The central concepts of liberation psychology include: concientización; realismo-crítico; de-ideologization; a social orientation; the preferential option for the oppressed majorities, and methodological eclecticism.

Concientización

The intrinsic connectedness of the person's experience and the sociopolitical structure is a fundamental tenet of liberation psychology and is referred to as concientización, a term introduced by the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, roughly translatable as the raising of politico-social consciousness. In this process people become more conscious of themselves and their lives as structured by the social reality of oppression, understood structurally, and they thereby become social actors. They change as they begin to act on their social circumstances. Understanding this interconnectedness is of particular importance to understanding the experiences and psychology of oppressed peoples, the power structure to which they are subjugated, and the ways in which this subjugation manifests in their behavior and psychopathology.

A social orientation

Liberation psychology criticises traditional psychology for explaining human behavior independently of the sociopolitical, historical, and cultural context. Martín-Baró argued that a failure of mainstream psychology is the attribution to the individual of characteristics that are found in the societal relations of the group. He argued that individual characteristics are a result of social relations, and to view such individualistically de-emphasizes the role of social structures, incorrectly attributing sociopolitical problems to the individual. Liberation psychology addresses this by reorienting the focus from an individualistic to a social orientation. Using this framework, the behaviour of oppressed people is conceptualized not through intrapsychic processes, but as a result of the alienating environment. 

The social orientation has a particular emphasis on understanding the role of history in shaping current conditions, and the ways in which this history resulted in the oppression of particular communities. Within this orientation, critical examination of social power and its structures is crucial. This is necessary in order to understand political and social power as not being interpersonal, but part of a society's institutional organization.

Preferential option for the oppressed majorities

The development of a psychology that is "from" oppressed people rather than "for" oppressed people is the aim of liberation psychologists. Traditional psychology is understood as Eurocentric and is critiqued for ignoring the unique experiences of oppressed individuals. Martín-Baró made a similar argument, critiquing Latin American psychologists for adopting Eurocentric psychological models that were not informed by the social, political, and cultural environment of the impoverished and oppressed, which was the majority of people in 1980s El Salvador.

Liberation psychology further criticizes traditional psychology for its ivory tower approach to understanding phenomena, following Martín-Baró's call for psychology to turn its attention from its own social and scientific status to the needs and struggles of the popular majority. Unlike traditional approaches, liberation psychology seeks to re-situate the psychologist as part of the emancipatory process for and with oppressed communities.

Realismo-crítico

Martín-Baró contended that theories should not define the problems to be explored, but that the problems generate their own theories. This idea is termed realismo-crítico. This is contrasted to the traditional approach of addressing problems based on preconceived theorization, idealismo-metodológico (methodological idealism). In realismo-crítico, theorization plays a supportive, but not fundamental, role. Martín-Baró's idea of realism-crítico should not be equated with the work of Roy Bhaskar on critical realism. Although the two ideas are conceptually similar in some ways, they have distinct meanings (hence the use of the term here in Spanish, rather than attempting a direct translation).

De-ideologized reality

Martín-Baró emphasized the role of ideology in obscuring the social forces and relations that create and maintain oppression: a key task of psychologists then is to de-ideologize reality, helping people to understand for themselves the nature of social reality transparently rather than obscured by dominant ideology. Ideology, understood as the ideas that perpetuate the interests of hegemonic groups, maintains the unjust sociopolitical environment. Alternatively, a de-ideologized reality encourages members of marginalized populations to endorse ideologies that promote their own interests and not those of the hegemony. Martín-Baró's analysis of supposed Latin American fatalism and the myth of the lazy Latino exemplified his approach as did his use of public opinion surveys to counter the distortion that the then government and military were presenting of the Salvadorian public's views on the war.

Methodological eclecticism

Research with a liberation psychology framework incorporates methodologies from diverse domains. Traditional methodologies, such as surveys and quantitative analyses, are combined with more novel techniques for psychology, such as qualitative analyses, photography, drama, and textual analysis.

Applications

Community psychology

Ignacio Martín-Baró had opposed the introduction of community psychology to El Salvador, on the basis of the ameliorative (asistencialista') approach and limited social perspective of then dominant North American models. Nevertheless, community psychology, and especially the Latin American variants (typically termed community social psychology) is one of the areas most influenced by the concepts of liberation psychology. Moreover, community social psychology in Latin America, which predates liberation psychology, also shares roots in the wider movement of Latin American critical and liberatory praxis (especially dependency theory, philosophy of liberation, liberation theology, critical or popular pedagogy).

Psychotherapeutic applications

Liberation psychology departs from traditional psychological prioritization of the individual and the attribution of an individual's distress to pathology within the individual. Liberation psychology seeks to understand the person within their sociopolitical, cultural, and historical context. Therefore, distress is understood not solely in intrapsychic terms but in the context of an oppressive environment that psychologises and individualises distress. In a psychotherapeutic context, this removes the onus of psychological distress solely from the individual and their immediate circumstances, and reframes the origin of distress as the environment and social structure to which persons are subjugated. Furthermore, this helps people to understand their relationship to the power structure, and the ways in which they participate in it. In liberatory approaches to mental distress the therapy is only a step towards the 're-insertion' of a person into their social milieu, social action and their existential life-project.

Moving liberation psychology forward

Since the late 1990s, international congresses on liberation psychology have been held, primarily at Latin American universities. These congresses have been attended by hundreds of professionals and students, and have been crucial in perpetuating the social justice message of liberation psychology.

Specific congress themes include human rights, social justice, democratization, and creating models for liberation psychology in psychological practice and pedagogy. In recent years, these meetings have become increasingly focused on addressing issues related to poverty and economic inequality.

International congresses on liberation psychology include:

• 1st, 1998 in Mexico City, Mexico
• 2nd, 1999 in San Salvador, El Salvador
• 3rd, 2000 in Cuernavaca, Mexico
• 4th, 2001 in Guatemala City, Guatemala
• 5th, 2002 in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico
• 6th, 2003 in Campinas, Brazil
• 7th, 2005 in Liberia, Costa Rica
• 8th, in Santiago de Chile
• 9th, 2008 in Chiapas, Mexico
• 10th, 2010 in Caracas, Venezuela
• 11th, 2012 in Bogotá, Colombia
• 12th, 2014 in Cusco, Peru congress web page
• 13th, 2016 in Cuernavaca, Mexico conference web page

Liberation psychology is not limited to Latin America. The term was used by Philippine psychologist Virgilio Enríquez, apparently independently of Martín-Baró. Elsewhere there have been explicit attempts to apply the approach to practice in other regions. In 2011 an English language liberation psychology network was established by the British psychologist Mark Burton. It has an international membership which reflects interest in liberation psychology from psychologists who do not read Spanish or Portuguese. Moreover, not all liberatory praxis in psychology goes under the name "liberation psychology".

Examples

Black psychology

Some scholars argue that the liberation psychology framework is central to black psychology. The interconnectedness of the personal and political, a fundamental tenet of liberation psychology, is central to black psychology. Furthermore, black psychology is thought of as inherently liberationist as it argues that addressing the psychology of black persons necessitates understanding, and addressing, the history and sociopolitical power structure that has resulted in the global oppression of individuals of African descent.

Proponents of black psychology operate within the social orientation of liberation psychology, contending that Eurocentric ideologies of traditional psychology lack relevance when dealing with black communities. Therefore, an Afrocentric conceptualization that recognizes the unique history of individuals of African-descent is necessary when dealing with such communities. Using a liberation psychology framework, black psychology argues that simply recognizing the distinctiveness of the black experience is inadequate if the psychological theorization used does not come from the communities to which they are applied. Such a position is consistent with Martín-Baró's assertion that the use of Eurocentric psychological methods is incongruent with the lived experiences of oppressed communities.

Liberation psychology and LGBT psychotherapy

Recent work in North America has sought to understand the applied use of liberation psychology in psychotherapy with LGBT individuals. Unlike traditional psychotherapeutic interventions, this approach reframes LGBT individuals' psychological issues as resulting from an understandable incorporation of the homonegative attitudes characteristic of the social structures within which gay and transgender people live. 

Traditional psychotherapy typically recognises the effect of homophobia and its impact on LGBT people, but often fails to clear the person of the blame for embracing such views. However, a liberationist psychological approach aims to facilitate the freeing the individual of the blame for adopting the homonegative views of the society. Instead, the onus is on the social environment, understanding that persons are themselves constituted as persons in their social context. Such an approach understands 'psychological' issues as inextricably linked to the societal context. 

This may free the LGBT person from feeling flawed for harboring homonegative ideas. They are then able to examine how they are a participant in the social environment and the ways in which they can take responsibility for future actions. Additionally, using the concept of concientización, people can examine how changing themselves can challenge the oppressive nature of the larger sociopolitical system, although in most liberation psychology there is a more dialectical relationship between personal and social change where personal change does not have to precede social liberation.

Critical pedagogy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Critical pedagogy is a philosophy of education and social movement that has developed and applied concepts from critical theory and related traditions to the field of education and the study of culture. Advocates of critical pedagogy view teaching as an inherently political act, reject the neutrality of knowledge, and insist that issues of social justice and democracy itself are not distinct from acts of teaching and learning. The goal of critical pedagogy is emancipation from oppression through an awakening of the critical consciousness, based on the Portuguese term conscientização. When achieved, critical consciousness encourages individuals to effect change in their world through social critique and political action.

Background

The concept of critical pedagogy can be traced back to Paulo Freire's best-known 1968 work, The Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Freire, a professor of history and the philosophy of education at the Federal University of Pernambuco in Brazil, sought in this and other works to develop a philosophy of adult education that demonstrated a solidarity with the poor in their common struggle to survive by engaging them in a dialogue of greater awareness and analysis. Although his family had suffered loss and hunger during the Great Depression, the poor viewed him and his formerly middle-class family "as people from another world who happened to fall accidentally into their world". His intimate discovery of class and their borders "led, invariably, to Freire's radical rejection of a class-based society".

The influential works of Freire made him arguably the most celebrated critical educator. He seldom used the term "critical pedagogy" himself when describing this philosophy. His initial focus targeted adult literacy projects in Brazil and later was adapted to deal with a wide range of social and educational issues. Freire's pedagogy revolved around an anti-authoritarian and interactive approach aimed to examine issues of relational power for students and workers. The center of the curriculum used the fundamental goal based on social and political critiques of everyday life. Freire's praxis required implementation of a range of educational practices and processes with the goal of creating not only a better learning environment but also a better world. Freire himself maintained that this was not merely an educational technique but a way of living in our educative practice.

Freire endorses students' ability to think critically about their education situation; this way of thinking is thought by practitioners of critical pedagogy to allow them to "recognize connections between their individual problems and experiences and the social contexts in which they are embedded".^[4] Realizing one's consciousness ("conscientization", "conscientização") is then a needed first step of "praxis", which is defined as the power and know-how to take action against oppression while stressing the importance of liberating education. "Praxis involves engaging in a cycle of theory, application, evaluation, reflection, and then back to theory. Social transformation is the product of praxis at the collective level."

Critical pedagogue Ira Shor, who was mentored by and worked closely with Freire from 1980 until Freire's death in 1997, defines critical pedagogy as:

Habits of thought, reading, writing, and speaking which go beneath surface meaning, first impressions, dominant myths, official pronouncements, traditional clichés, received wisdom, and mere opinions, to understand the deep meaning, root causes, social context, ideology, and personal consequences of any action, event, object, process, organization, experience, text, subject matter, policy, mass media, or discourse. (Empowering Education, 129)

Critical pedagogy explores the dialogic relationships between teaching and learning. Its proponents claim that it is a continuous process of what they call "unlearning", "learning", and "relearning", "reflection", "evaluation", and the effect that these actions have on the students, in particular students whom they believe have been historically and continue to be disenfranchised by what they call "traditional schooling".

The educational philosophy has since been developed by Henry Giroux and others since the 1980s as a praxis-oriented "educational movement, guided by passion and principle, to help students develop a consciousness of freedom, recognize authoritarian tendencies, and connect knowledge to power and the ability to take constructive action". Freire wrote the introduction to his 1988 work, Teachers as Intellectuals: Toward a Critical Pedagogy of Learning. Another leading critical pedagogy theorist who Freire called his "intellectual cousin", Peter McLaren, wrote the foreword. McLaren and Giroux co-edited one book on critical pedagogy and co-authored another in the 1990s. Among its other leading figures in no particular order are bell hooks (Gloria Jean Watkins), Joe L. Kincheloe, Patti Lather, Antonia Darder, Gloria Ladson-Billings, Peter McLaren, Joe L. Kincheloe, Khen Lampert, Howard Zinn, Donaldo Macedo, Sandy Grande, Michael Apple, and Stephanie Ledesma. Educationalists including Jonathan Kozol and Parker Palmer are sometimes included in this category. Other critical pedagogues known more for their Anti-schooling, unschooling, or deschooling perspectives include Ivan Illich, John Holt, Ira Shor, John Taylor Gatto, and Matt Hern. 

Critical pedagogy has several other strands and foundations. Postmodern, anti-racist, feminist, postcolonial, and queer theories all play a role in further expanding and enriching Freire's original ideas about a critical pedagogy, shifting its main focus on social class to include issues pertaining to religion, military identification, race, gender, sexuality, nationality, ethnicity, and age. Much of the work also draws on anarchism, György Lukács, Wilhelm Reich, postcolonialism, and the discourse theories of Edward Said, Antonio Gramsci, Gilles Deleuze (rhizomatic learning) and Michel Foucault. Radical Teacher is a magazine dedicated to critical pedagogy and issues of interest to critical educators. Many contemporary critical pedagogues have embraced Postmodern, anti-essentialist perspectives of the individual, of language, and of power, "while at the same time retaining the Freirean emphasis on critique, disrupting oppressive regimes of power/knowledge, and social change".

Developments

Like critical theory itself, the field of critical pedagogy continues to evolve. Contemporary critical educators, such as bell hooks and Peter McLaren, discuss in their criticisms the influence of many varied concerns, institutions, and social structures, "including globalization, the mass media, and race/spiritual relations", while citing reasons for resisting the possibilities to change. McLaren has developed a social movement based version of critical pedagogy that he calls revolutionary critical pedagogy, emphasizing critical pedagogy as a social movement for the creation of a democratic socialist alternative to capitalism.

Joe L. Kincheloe and Shirley R. Steinberg have created the Paulo and Nita Freire Project for International Critical Pedagogy at McGill University. In line with Kincheloe and Steinberg's contributions to critical pedagogy, the project attempts to move the field to the next phase of its evolution. In this second phase, critical pedagogy seeks to become a worldwide, decolonizing movement dedicated to listening to and learning from diverse discourses of people from around the planet. Kincheloe and Steinberg also embrace Indigenous knowledges in education as a way to expand critical pedagogy and to question educational hegemony. Joe L. Kincheloe, in expanding on the Freire's notion that a pursuit of social change alone could promote anti-intellectualism, promotes a more balanced approach to education than postmodernists.

We cannot simply attempt to cultivate the intellect without changing the unjust social context in which such minds operate. Critical educators cannot just work to change the social order without helping to educate a knowledgeable and skillful group of students. Creating a just, progressive, creative, and democratic society demands both dimensions of this pedagogical progress.

One of the major texts taking up the intersection between critical pedagogy and Indigenous knowledge(s) is Sandy Grande's, Red Pedagogy: Native American Social and Political Thought (Rowman and Littlefield, 2004). In agreement with this perspective, Four Arrows, aka Don Trent Jacobs, challenges the anthropocentrism of critical pedagogy and writes that to achieve its transformative goals there are other differences between Western and Indigenous worldview that must be considered. Approaching the intersection of Indigenous perspectives and pedagogy from another perspective, critical pedagogy of place examines the impacts of place.

In the classroom

Ira Shor, a professor at the City University of New York, provides for an example of how critical pedagogy is used in the classroom. He develops these themes in looking at the use of Freirean teaching methods in the context of the everyday life of classrooms, in particular, institutional settings. He suggests that the whole curriculum of the classroom must be re-examined and reconstructed. He favors a change of role of the student from object to active, critical subject. In doing so, he suggests that students undergo a struggle for ownership of themselves. He states that students have previously been lulled into a sense of complacency by the circumstances of everyday life and that through the processes of the classroom, they can begin to envision and strive for something different for themselves. 

Of course, achieving such a goal is not automatic nor easy, as he suggests that the role of the teacher is critical to this process. Students need to be helped by teachers to separate themselves from unconditional acceptance of the conditions of their own existence. Once this separation is achieved, then students may be prepared for critical re-entry into an examination of everyday life. In a classroom environment that achieves such liberating intent, one of the potential outcomes is that the students themselves assume more responsibility for the class. Power is thus distributed amongst the group and the role of the teacher becomes much more mobile, not to mention more challenging. This encourages the growth of each student's intellectual character rather than a mere "mimicry of the professorial style."

Teachers, however, do not simply abdicate their authority in a student-centred classroom. In the later years of his life, Freire grew increasingly concerned with what he felt was a major misinterpretation of his work and insisted that teachers cannot deny their position of authority.

Critical teachers, therefore, must admit that they are in a position of authority and then demonstrate that authority in their actions in supports of students... [A]s teachers relinquish the authority of truth providers, they assume the mature authority of facilitators of student inquiry and problem-solving. In relation to such teacher authority, students gain their freedom--they gain the ability to become self-directed human beings capable of producing their own knowledge.

— Joe L. Kincheloe, Critical Pedagogy Primer p. 17

And due to the student-centeredness that critical pedagogy insists upon, there are inherent conflicts associated with the "large collections of top-down content standards in their disciplines".^[8] Critical pedagogy advocates insist that teachers themselves are vital to the discussion about Standards-based education reform in the United States because a pedagogy that requires a student to learn or a teacher to teach externally imposed information exemplifies the banking model of education outlined by Freire where the structures of knowledge are left unexamined. To the critical pedagogue, the teaching act must incorporate social critique alongside the cultivation of intellect.

Joe L. Kincheloe argues that this is in direct opposition to the epistemological concept of positivism, where "social actions should proceed with law-like predictability". In this philosophy, a teacher and their students would be served by Standards-based education where there is "only be one correct way to teach" as "[e]veryone is assumed to be the same regardless of race, class, or gender". Donald Schön's concept of "indeterminate zones of practice" illustrates how any practice, especially ones with human subjects at their center, are infinitely complex and highly contested, which amplify the critical pedagogue's unwillingness to apply universal practices.

Furthermore, bell hooks, who is greatly influenced by Freire, points out the importance of engaged pedagogy and the responsibility that teachers, as well as students, must have in the classroom:

Teachers must be aware of themselves as practitioners and as human beings if they wish to teach students in a non-threatening, anti-discriminatory way. Self-actualisation should be the goal of the teacher as well as the students.

Resistance from students

Students sometimes resist critical pedagogy. Student resistance to critical pedagogy can be attributed to a variety of reasons. Student objections may be due to ideological reasons, religious or moral convictions, fear of criticism, or discomfort with controversial issues. Kristen Seas argues: "Resistance in this context thus occurs when students are asked to shift not only their perspectives, but also their subjectivities as they accept or reject assumptions that contribute to the pedagogical arguments being constructed." Karen Kopelson asserts that resistance to new information or ideologies, introduced in the classroom, is a natural response to persuasive messages that are unfamiliar.

Resistance is often, at the least, understandably protective: As anyone who can remember her or his own first uneasy encounters with particularly challenging new theories or theorists can attest, resistance serves to shield us from uncomfortable shifts or all-out upheavals in perception and understanding-shifts in perception which, if honored, force us to inhabit the world in fundamentally new and different ways.

Kristen Seas further explains: "Students [often] reject the teacher's message because they see it as coercive, they do not agree with it, or they feel excluded by it." Karen Kopelson concludes "that many if not most students come to the university in order to gain access to and eventual enfranchisement in 'the establishment,' not to critique and reject its privileges." To overcome student resistance to critical pedagogy, teachers must enact strategic measures to help their students negotiate controversial topics.

Critical pedagogy of teaching

The rapidly changing demographics of the classroom in the United States has resulted in an unprecedented amount of linguistic and cultural diversity. In order to respond to these changes, advocates of critical pedagogy call into question the focus on practical skills of teacher credential programs. "[T]his practical focus far too often occurs without examining teachers' own assumptions, values, and beliefs and how this ideological posture informs, often unconsciously, their perceptions and actions when working with linguistic-minority and other politically, socially, and economically subordinated students." As teaching is considered an inherently political act to the critical pedagogue, a more critical element of teacher education becomes addressing implicit biases (also known as implicit cognition or implicit stereotypes) that can subconsciously affect a teacher's perception of a student's ability to learn.

Advocates of critical pedagogy insist that teachers, then, must become learners alongside their students, as well as students of their students. They must become experts beyond their field of knowledge, and immerse themselves in the culture, customs, and lived experiences of the students they aim to teach.

History

During South African apartheid, legal racialization implemented by the regime drove members of the radical leftist Teachers' League of South Africa to employ critical pedagogy with a focus on nonracialism in Cape Town schools and prisons. Teachers collaborated loosely to subvert the racist curriculum and encourage critical examination of religious, military, political, and social circumstances in terms of spirit-friendly, humanist, and democratic ideologies. The efforts of such teachers are credited with having bolstered student resistance and activism.

Criticism

Philosopher John Searle characterizes the goal of Giroux's form of critical pedagogy "to create political radicals", thus highlighting the antagonistic moral and political grounds of the ideals of citizenship and "public wisdom." These varying moral perspectives of what is "right" are to be found in what John Dewey has referred to as the tensions between traditional and progressive education. Searle argues that critical pedagogy's objections to the Western canon are misplaced and/or disingenuous:

Precisely by inculcating a critical attitude, the "canon" served to demythologize the conventional pieties of the American bourgeoisie and provided the student with a perspective from which to critically analyze American culture and institutions. Ironically, the same tradition is now regarded as oppressive. The texts once served an unmasking function; now we are told that it is the texts which must be unmasked.

Maxine Hairston takes a hard line against critical pedagogy in the first year college composition classroom and argues, "everywhere I turn I find composition faculty, both leaders in the profession and new voices, asserting that they have not only the right, but the duty, to put ideology and radical politics at the center of their teaching." Hairston further confers,

When classes focus on complex issues such as racial discrimination, economic injustices, and inequities of class and gender, they should be taught by qualified faculty who have the depth of information and historical competence that such critical social issues warrant. Our society's deep and tangled cultural conflicts can neither be explained nor resolved by simplistic ideological formulas.

Sharon O'Dair (2003) says that today compositionists "focus [...] almost exclusively on ideological matters", and further argues that this focus is at the expense of proficiency of student writing skills in the composition classroom. To this end, O'Dair explains that "recently advocated working-class pedagogies privilege activism over" language instruction." Jeff Smith argues that students want to gain, rather than to critique, positions of privilege, as encouraged by critical pedagogues. There are a wide variety of views in opposition to critical pedagogy in the first year composition classroom, these are but a few.

Ecopedagogy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

The ecopedagogy movement is an outgrowth of the theory and practice of critical pedagogy, a body of educational praxis influenced by the philosopher and educator Paulo Freire. Ecopedagogy's mission is to develop a robust appreciation for the collective potentials of humanity and to foster social justice throughout the world. It does so as part of a future-oriented, ecological and political vision that radically opposes the globalization of ideologies such as neoliberalism and imperialism, while also attempting to foment forms of critical ecoliteracy. Recently, there have been attempts to integrate critical eco-pedagogy, as defined by Greg Misiaszek with Modern Stoic philosophy to create Stoic eco-pedagogy.

 

One of ecopedagogy's goals is the realization of culturally relevant forms of knowledge grounded in normative concepts such as sustainability, planetarity (i.e. identifying as an earthling) and biophilia (i.e. love of all life).

Early history

The ecopedagogy movement began in a Latin American educational context, growing out of discussions at the second Earth Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992.  Educators desired to present a theory and discourse about the interrelationship between society and the environment, a statement would eventually be ratified as the Earth Charter in 2000. In 1999 the First International Symposium on the Earth Charter in the Perspective of Education was held by the Instituto Paulo Freire, Brasil directed by Moacir Gadotti and in collaboration with the Earth Council and UNESCO. This was soon followed by the First International Forum on Ecopedagogy. As a result of these conferences, the Ecopedagogy Charter was also formed, launching the spread of ecopedagogy seminars and programs around the world. 

Objectives and aims

Ecopedagogy's primary goal is to create a "planetary consciousness" through revolutionary teaching and learning. The movement aims to create educational programs that interrogate the intersection of social, political, economic and environmental systems. As an outgrowth of critical pedagogy, ecopedagogy critiques environmental education and education for sustainable development as vain attempts by mainstream forms of pedagogy seeking to appear relevant regarding current issues of environmental degradation. It is critical of mainstream representations of nature that are potentially informed by racist, sexist, and classist values, and wary of the tendency of "greenwashing" of environmental terminology. 

While members of the ecopedagogy movement recognize that environmental education can accomplish some positive change, they question the ways in which environmental education (especially within global north) is often reduced to forms of experiential pedagogy and outdoor education without questioning the mainstream experience of nature as pristine wilderness. Ecopedagogy points out that environmental education is often tethered to state and corporate-sponsored science and social studies standards or fails to articulate the political necessity for widespread understanding of the unsustainable nature of modern lifestyles. However, ecopedagogy has tried to utilize the ongoing United Nations Decade of Educational for Sustainable Development (2005–2015) to make strategic interventions on behalf of the oppressed, using it as an opportunity to unpack and clarify the concept of sustainable development.

 

Ecopedagogy scholar Richard Kahn describes the three main goals of the ecopedagogy movement to be:

1. Creating opportunities for the proliferation of ecoliteracy programs, both within schools and society.
2. Bridging the gap of praxis between scholars and the public (especially activists) on ecopedagogical interests.
3. Instigating dialogue and self-reflective solidarity across the many groups among educational left, particularly in light of the existing planetary crisis.

Angela Antunes and Moacir Gadotti (2005) wrote:

"Ecopedagogy is not just another pedagogy among many other pedagogies. It not only has meaning as an alternative project concerned with nature preservation (Natural Ecology) and the impact made by human societies on the natural environment (Social Ecology), but also as a new model for sustainable civilization from the ecological point of view (Integral Ecology), which implies making changes on economic, social, and cultural structures."

According to social movement theorists Ron Ayerman and Andrew Jamison, there are three broad dimensions of environmentally related movements: cosmological, technological, and organizational. In ecopedagogy, these dimensions are outlined by Richard Kahn (2010) as the following:

• The cosmological dimension focuses on how ecoliteracy, i.e. understanding the natural systems that sustain life, can transform people’s worldviews. For example, assumptions about society’s having the right to exploit nature can be transformed into understanding of the need for ecological balance to support society in the long term. The success of such ‘cosmological’ thinking transformations can be assessed by the degree to which such paradigm shifts are adopted by the public.
• The technological dimension is two-fold: critiquing the set of polluting technologies that have contributed to traditional development as well as some which are used or misused under the pretext of sustainable development; and promoting clean technologies that do not interfere with ecological and social balance.
• The organizational dimension emphasizes that knowledge should be of and for the people, thus academics should be in dialogue with public discourse and social movements. 

Discussion of term in literature

Ecopedagogy is not the collection of theories or practices developed by any particular set of individuals. Rather, akin to the World Social Forum and other related forms of contemporary popular education strategies, it is a worldwide association of critical educators, theorists, non-governmental and governmental organizations, grassroots activists and concerned citizens who engage in ongoing dialogue and political action. This process attempts to develop ecopedagogical praxis in relation to the needs of particular places, groups and time periods.

The earliest use of the term "ecopedagogy" may have been by de Haan (1984) in a now little known German text. Shortly thereafter, in the first known English use of the term, Gronemeyer (1987) described ecopedagogy as the merging of environmentalist politics and adult education. Ecopedagogy has also been discussed by Ahlberg (1998; Jardine (2000); Petrina (2000); Yang & Hung (2004); and Payne (2005). The work of Lummis (2002)  shares some sympathies, such as a critical theory approach. 

Ironically, at the same time it was coined by Freire's friend-cum-critic Ivan Illich (1988) to describe an educational process in which educators and educands become inscribed in abstract pedagogical systems, resulting in pedagogy as an end and not a means. As used by Illich, ecopedagogy is represented by forms of education that seek the total administration of life through mandatory pedagogical experiences of systemization. As such, he believed that the movements for lifelong education and the creation of global classrooms (Illich & Verne, 1981) by bureaucratic educational institutions exemplified such approaches. However, he was also critical of popular environmentalist pedagogy attempting to mobilize people's sentiments for solutions to problems such as global warming, hunger, and rainforest destruction. Illich's point was that such an ecopedagogy works on a problems/solutions axis that implies a global managerialism that is abhorrent to truly sustainable living in the world. This is a different idea from the way the term and concept is being defined and utilized in critical education circles today, though it is potentially of great importance for the future development of the ecopedagogy movement on the whole.

Paulo Freire was himself at work on a book of ecopedagogy upon his death in 1997, parts of which are included in his posthumous Pedagogy of Indignation (2004). Other influential books include: Francisco Gutierrez and Cruz Prado's Ecopedagogy and Planetary Citizenship (1999), Moacir Gadotti's Pedagogy of the Earth (2000),  and Richard Kahn's Critical Pedagogy, Ecoliteracy, and Planetary Crisis: The Ecopedagogy Movement. 

Criticisms

Both supporters and critics of ecopedagogy agree that historically, critical educators in the West have been largely unsuccessful at addressing environmental issues in their classrooms. However, much disagreement still exists between critics and supporters of ecopedagogy on the ethics, theoretical approach, and methodology of this pedagogical style.

The strongest criticisms of ecopedagogy begins with the idea that Paulo Freire, critical pedagogy's founding figure, was unconscious of ecological challenges. The well-known collection, Rethinking Freire, includes strong criticisms of many aspects of critical pedagogy by Illichan and eco-literacy teachers, criticisms that necessarily include the ecopedagogy movement. One critic, C.A. Bowers, argues that if ecopedagogy (and the larger critical pedagogy of Freire and Gadotti) were universally adopted, it would contribute to the hegemonic spread of Western culture and systems, thereby choking out non-Western ways of thinking, viewing, and interacting with the human and built environments. Bowers further argues that adoption of Freirean ecopedagogy would hasten the existence of a world monoculture and would fail to address the systemic roots of the current ecological crisis and fail to protect the commons from further exploitation. In this view, ecopedagogy is akin to an educational Trojan horse that is little more than a vehicle for transmitting Western culture and domination. 

Moderate critics of ecopedagogy argue that the critical lens of ecopedagogy can be useful, but that its adherents must be actively critical of ecopedagogy itself. They argue that without a constant focus on understanding and fostering diversity in thought, culture, and ecosystem, ecopedagogy is meaningless and could be counter-productive to its aims. Ecopedagogy (and critical pedagogy) has also been heavily criticized for not being critical of the categories that underlie its work. Here, critics argue that in valuing individualism, ecopedagogy fails to attend to traditional eco-centered cultures' already deep connection to the non-human world. Moreover, some scholars from the eco- and critical pedagogical traditions fail to recognize how the "primary categories in classical liberal thought may operate in the discourse of critical pedagogy".

Ecopedagogy in action

Ecopedagogy emphasizes the necessity of praxis alongside theory. Besides the specific ecopedagogy degree programs and Paulo Freire Institutes, there are many instances of ecological education that not only teach people the critical thinking of ecopedagogy but also engage them in learning through action. For example, a study conducted with 10-year-old children in West Scotland concluded that interactive dramatic education was successful in engaging students in ecological, social, and political dimensions of global problems such as solid waste and deforestation. The dramatic exercises required to make a decision or take a stance, thus strengthening their understanding and conviction of the issues. And ecopedagogy is not limited to formal students; in Turkey, for example, participatory action research showed that an outdoor community-based ecopedagogy program for university professors was successful in the "promotion of public participation, the engagement of students, teacher and parents in local environmental issues, and the development of social capital to achieve environmental sustainability. By situating local knowledge within critical pedagogy and social activism, these projects can help universities to bridge the gap between academia and society."

Greta Gaard outlines the necessity for children's environmental literature to encompass the following core aspects of ecopedagogy:

• praxis
• teaching ABOUT the social and natural environment
• teaching IN the social and natural environment
• teaching THROUGH the social and natural environment
• teaching the connections of sustainability
• urgency 

The question of technology had become increasingly pertinent. While the production and consumption of technology largely has a negative effect on the environment and certain aspects of society-environment relations, technology still provides certain new avenues in ecopedagogy. For example, more people have access to information and collaboration through the internet and thus can engage in informal ecological education faster and in wider spheres. Similarly, community projects to install solar panels or wind turbines or simple technology that help farms to transition to agroecology are examples of the uses of technology in ecopedagogy.

Earth Liberation Front

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Earth Liberation Front (ELF), also known as "Elves" or "The Elves", is the collective name for autonomous individuals or covert cells who, according to the ELF Press Office, use "economic sabotage and guerrilla warfare to stop the exploitation and destruction of the environment".

The ELF was founded in Brighton in the United Kingdom in 1992 and spread to the rest of Europe by 1994. It is now an international organization with actions reported in 17 countries and is widely regarded as descending from Animal Liberation Front because of the relationship and cooperation between the two movements. Using the same leaderless resistance model, as well as similar guidelines to the ALF, sympathizers say that it is an eco-defense group dedicated to taking the profit motive out of environmental destruction by causing economic damage to businesses through the use of property damage.

The ELF was classified as the top "domestic terror" threat in the United States by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in March 2001, and its members classified as eco-terrorists. On the lack of deaths from ELF attacks, the FBI's deputy assistant director for counterterrorism has said, "I think we're lucky. Once you set one of these fires they can go way out of control." The name came to public prominence when they were featured on the television show 60 Minutes in 2005. The group was further highlighted in the 2011 Academy Award nominated documentary If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front.

Structure and aims

ELF "monkeywrenching" is carried out against facilities and companies involved in logging, genetic engineering, GMO crops, deforestation, sport utility vehicle (SUV) sales, urban sprawl, rural cluster and developments with larger homes, energy production and distribution, and a wide variety of other activities, all charged by the ELF with exploiting the Earth, its environment and inhabitants.

The Earth Liberation Front has no formal leadership, hierarchy, membership or official spokesperson and is entirely decentralized; instead consisting of individuals or cells who choose the term as a banner to use. Individuals are commonly known to work in affinity groups, known as cells, and are usually self-funded.

Techniques involve destruction of property, by either using tools to disable or the use of arson to destroy what activists believe is being used to injure animals, people or the environment. These actions are sometimes called ecotage and there are marked differences between their actions in the United States and the United Kingdom. 

With many different reasons why ELF activists carry out economic sabotage, a communique to the press claiming the responsibility for an arson against urban sprawl in December 2000, described the reason a cell took an action. As Elves usually do, they claimed that burning down the house was non-violent, because it was searched for any living creatures; an issue which is much debated within the environmental movement.

Some of the most common and notable attacks are against the development of multimillion-dollar houses, a frequent target in the ELF campaign. In a communique to the press from the group's "above-ground spokesperson", Craig Rosebraugh, that was later published in The Environmental Magazine, the group said in November 2000:

Urban sprawl has undoubtedly served to alter nearly 90 percent of Long Island's habitats, either by physically removing them, paving them, or polluting them with toxic man-made materials, making them either undesirable or unsustainable for most species.

Press office

The North American Earth Liberation Front Press Office (NAELFPO or ELFPO) was relaunched in October 2008, receiving anonymous communiques from activists, for distributing to the press and public, to discuss the motives, ideologies and history behind such actions.

Craig Rosebraugh served as an unofficial spokesperson for the ELF Press Office in North America from 1997 to early September 2001. Doubts have been raised about whether Rosebraugh or other unofficial spokespeople actually have ties to the cells involved, although the press office claim they do not know the identities of ELF members.

Support networks

Prisoner support networks support ELF prisoners, such as Spirit of Freedom (ELPSN), an English website listing all Earth Liberation prisoners, as well as a variety of other prisoners of conscience. There are also ELF support networks in Belgium, Italy, North America, and Poland, which collectively coordinate the support of prisoners, as well as websites for specific prisoners, such as for; Rod Coronado, Jeff "Free" Luers, Daniel McGowan, Briana Waters and Tre Arrow. The networks distribute literature written by those in prison, to their supporters and other support groups, and sometimes raise funds for those who require financial aid in their cases.

Philosophy

Earth liberationists, are a diverse group of individuals with a variety of different ideologies and theories. These include; animal liberationists, anti-capitalists, green anarchists, deep ecologists, eco-feminists, and anti-globalisationists.

Elves argue that direct action is required in order to aid the earth liberation movement, also referred to as eco-resistance movement, and a part of the radical environmental movement. The ELF claim that it would be similar to how the ALF has projected forward the animal liberation movement. There was also the intention that in the same way animal liberationists "help out" with legal campaigns, earth liberationists would aid above-ground environmental organisations, notably Earth First!, by acts of ecotage.

Origin

United Kingdom

The symbol of Earth First!: a monkey wrench and stone hammer.

 

The Earth Liberation Front was founded in 1992 in Brighton, England by members of the Earth First! (EF!) environmental movement at the first ever national meeting. At the time, EF! had become very popular, so people's concerns were based on maintaining this popularity and by doing so not associating with overt law breaking. There was no universal agreement over this, but it was accepted amongst the movement that British EF! would instead continue to advocate and focus on civil disobedience and mass demonstrations. If people wanted to participate in acts of ecotage, the new name "Earth Liberation Front" would be used, with its name and guidelines derived from the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), another movement that uses direct action to liberate animals or sabotage companies using them. It was understood that the simplicity of the guidelines was a crucial factor in order to engage as many people as possible to the new cause, with the intention that the ELF would quickly become as popular as the ALF.

Earth Night

The very first ELF action is unknown, or undocumented, but one of the first and most notable actions was on April Fool's Earth Night 1992, a night organised by activists to carry out ecotage and also one of the first of them. The Elves, as they were also known, targeted Fisons, a peat company accused of destroying the peat bogs causing £50,000–70,000 worth of damage. Pumps, trucks and other machinery belonging to the company were destroyed after legal campaigners, Friends of the Earth, spent two years advocating a boycott of the company. Green Anarchist magazine publicised the communique with the demands from the ELF:

All our peat bogs must be preserved in their entirety, for the sake of the plants, the animals and our national heritage. Cynically donating small amounts will do no good. The water table will drop, and the bogs will dry out and die, unless it is preserved fully. Fisons must leave all of it alone – now!

EF! Journal

In the September–October 1993 issue of the Earth First! Journal, an anonymous article announced the creation of the ELF in England. It said the ELF is a movement of independently operating eco-saboteurs that split from the British EF! movement, which has focused directly on public direct actions. The author noted that, unlike the ALF which seeks publicity: "ELF cells, for security reasons, work without informing the press and do not claim responsibility for actions."

Development of the ELF abroad

Europe

The ELF quickly spread across to Europe by 1994, with actions first occurring in the Netherlands, Germany, Russia, Scandinavia, New Zealand, Italy, Ireland, Poland, Spain, France and Finland, and the name starting to be used across the globe. The Earth Liberation Front is widely regarded as the Animal Liberation Front's younger sibling, because of the relationship and cooperation between the two movements. It is believed that cells rapidly established themselves in new countries because of the global outreach of Earth First! and the connection between the two groups. British Elves were also making contact with like-minded activists, informing them about the ELF and its tactics, with missionaries targeting specifically France, Spain, Germany and the Netherlands. 

Within two years, McDonald's had been vandalised in Germany and Poland, Amsterdam Airport Schiphol had been sabotaged, and high-emission vehicles had been destroyed. Hunting towers were torn down in the Netherlands and Germany, which was presumably inspired by similar actions against hunting by the ALF.

North America

Canadian ELA

The first time it was known that an earth liberation action had happened in North America, was in 1995, in Canada, by a group calling itself the Earth Liberation Army (ELA). They were considered by the European Elves at the time to be "transatlantic cousins". On 19 June 1995, the ELA burned down a wildlife museum and damaged a hunting lodge in British Columbia.

United States

On Columbus Day 1996, activists spraypainted "504 years of genocide" and "ELF" on the walls of a public relations office, as well as a McDonald's restaurant in Oregon, the actions were the very first by the ELF in the United States. The same restaurant then had its locks glued and spraypainted again, but this time in support of the British McLibel Two, two activists who had distributed anti-McDonald's leaflets. The next day, it was reported that another two McDonald's restaurants, again in Oregon, had their locks glued by ELF activists. The only other reported action of the year was on Christmas Day, when a fur farm was raided in Michigan and 150 mink released into the wild by the Great Lakes ELF.

The Fox, a Chicago area Fox River's environmental activist, began ELF style operations in the early 1980s with peak number of ELF actions occurred in early 1990's.

Mexico

In late November 2008, a group calling itself Eco-Anarquista Por El Ataque Directo (Eco-anarchist cell supporting direct attack) claimed responsibility for a number of recent actions, including half a dozen Molotov cocktails thrown at tren férreo (metro rail) in Mexico City, incendiary sabotage against Telmex, and a Molotov cocktail thrown at a Banamex ATM. The group claimed that these attacks were a form of protest against the construction of a new rail line (line 12), in Mexico City (D.F.) and Mexico State. The construction had caused deforestation and the eviction of many families.

Soon after this initial group of actions, the Frente de Liberación de la Tierra (Earth Liberation Front) claimed responsibility for a number of actions including the sabotage of a construction machine on December 30, 2008, arson at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) and the March 22nd, 2009 burning of construction equipment in Guadalajara, Jalisco.

South America

Argentina

Over the first months of 2012, several car arson cases in Buenos Aires were claimed by the "Frente de Liberacion de la Tierra", stating that "...our proposal is to destroy property from the bourgoise class from Palermo to Villa Devoto who are sure that everything will stay the same, but some individuals are tired of this and pretend to continue with this initiative to expand the daily riots..."

Notable actions: 1998–2009

1996–1999

The ELF gained state attention in the state of Oregon in 1996 when they burned down the Oakridge Ranger Station. The ELF gained national attention for a series of actions which earned them the label of eco-terrorists, and one of the top domestic terror threats in the United States. This came after the burning of a ski resort in Vail, Colorado, on October 19, costing $12 million. In a communique to the press, the ELF said:

Vail, Inc. is already the largest ski operation in North America and now wants to expand even further. The 12 miles (19 km) of roads and 885 acres (3.58 km²) of clearcuts will ruin the last, best lynx habitat in the state. Putting profits ahead of Colorado's wildlife will not be tolerated.

Actions also included sabotaging power lines, the burning of an SUV dealership, and the burning down of a logging headquarters causing $1 million in damages. The Elves wrote to the local paper "Let this be a lesson to all greedy multinational corporations who don't respect their ecosystems," with most actions taking place in Oregon. The defendants in the case were later charged in the FBI's "Operation Backfire", which included 17 acts of property destruction.

The ELF then set fire to Michigan State University on New Year's Eve, using a gasoline bomb to cause $1.1 million in damages, because of a program to provide GMO plants to African farmers. ELF spokesmen claimed Monsanto had been a major contributor to funding the program; however, the only funding from Monsanto Corp. was a one-time sum of $2,000 to send five African students to a conference on biotechnology. The next day, commercial logging equipment was set on fire, with "ELF" and "Go Log in Hell" spraypainted on a truck. In March 2008, four activists were charged for both the arsons.

2000

On November 27, in Colorado, the ELF burned the Legend Ridge mansion and sent a message to the Boulder Weekly saying "Viva la revolution!" Damages were estimated at $2.5 million.

2001

In March, a total of thirty SUVs were torched, belonging to Joe Romania's dealership, in Oregon, with damages estimated at $1 million. The action was claimed in support of Jeff "Free" Luers, who targeted the very same dealership and was in court for the charges at the time. He was then sentenced to twenty-two years in jail, later revised to ten. 

On May 21, a fire destroyed laboratories, offices, and archives at the Center for Urban Horticulture, University of Washington, causing a total of $7 million in damages. The arson destroyed 20 years of research and plant and book collections. The ELF claimed responsibility based upon the incorrect belief that the University was involved in genetic engineering of poplar trees. No genetic engineering was being conducted. In the wake of the attack, an FBI spokeswoman in Portland, Oregon said "I don't think there's any doubt the ELF is upping the ante".

On November 21, ELF member Ian Wallace planted incendiary devices outside of two buildings on the campus of Michigan Technological University in Houghton, Michigan during the early morning hours. The devices failed, and on March 21, 2009, Wallace was sentenced to three years in prison for the incident by Judge Robert Holmes Bell, who said Wallace "didn't intend to hurt anybody, (but) this is a serious offense." Said Wallace after his conviction, "I have been consumed by shame for what I have done," Wallace said. "My greatest blessing is that no one got hurt."

2003

On January 1, in Girard, Pennsylvania, jugs of gasoline were set under three vehicles at Bob Ferrando Ford Lincoln Mercury and set ablaze. Two pickup trucks, one Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV) and a car were destroyed causing $90,000 in damages. Steve Dartnell of Fairview claimed responsibility for the attack. 

On August 1, a 206-unit condominium in San Diego was destroyed, with a banner left at the scene saying "If you build it, we will burn it", signed "The E.L.F.s are mad". The damages totaled $20 million after flames reached an estimated 200 feet (61 m) in the air, as over a hundred fire fighters attempted to put out the fire. The destruction was the movement's most financially damaging action against a target, with a local preservation group calling the action pointless, noting that "You can go and burn something down, but it's just going to get built again." Exactly three weeks later, 125 SUVs and hummers were torched in Los Angeles costing a total of $3.5 million, with "I love pollution" spray-painted at the scene, and a month later, homes being built in San Diego were targeted again, this time costing an estimated $450,000 in damages.

2006

The FBI's most recent report stated that there had been over 1,200 "criminal incidents", within January 2006. A nearly completed 9,600-square-foot (890 m²) house, worth $3 million, was burnt to the ground in Washington. It was reported that a bed-sheet was draped across the front gate, with a message reading "Built Green? Nope black. McMansions and RCDs r not green," a reference to rural cluster developments.

2008

One of the latest ELF arsons was reported on the morning of March 3, when explosive devices set fire to four multimillion-dollar homes from the 2007 Seattle Street of Dreams in Echo Lake, Washington, causing $7 million in damage. Authorities described the act as "domestic terrorism" after finding "ELF" spray-painted in red letters, mocking claims that the homes were environmentally friendly: "Built Green? Nope black! McMansions in RCDs r not green. ELF."

2009

On March 23, the ELF claimed the burning of an excavator in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. In one of many recent anonymous communiques, the ELF reported to Bite Back; "Maybe we have not collapsed the system of domination with these actions, but it begins with actions like these."

On September 4, ELF claimed responsibility for using a stolen excavator to overturn two AM radio towers belonging to station KRKO near Seattle, Washington; they claimed that radio waves are dangerous.

A Texas man was arrested after construction workers found a disabled construction vehicle graffitied with the words "ANOTHER TRACTOR DECOMMISSIONED BY THE E.L.F."

Other movements

ELA and Environmental Rangers

The first major report of a name other than ELF being used to claim ecotage was in October 1998, when the Earth Liberation Army (ELA) claimed to be responsible for causing $12 million in damages to Vail Ski Resort by setting fire to several buildings and four chairlifts.

Two years later, in Oregon, three SUVs were completely destroyed by placing jugs of gasoline under the vehicles, with the ELA calling for others to "[c]ontinue the fight to remove the profit motive from the killing of the environment (biophysical)." Jeff Luers was later convicted of arson, as part of the Operation Backfire case, along with other ALF and ELF defendants. There have also been other groups that have caused similar damage as the ELF, with in 2001 reports that "eco-terrorist" attacks, known as "ecotage", had increased. These included the ELF, the ELA, and another name being used – the "Environmental Rangers" who use similar tactics. Activists have also used the names "The Moles", "The Grey Wolves", "Westcountry Wildlife Cell", "Eco-Animal Defense Unit", and "Radical Brigades for Ecological Defence", as well as others.

Environmental Life Force

The Environmental Life Force, also known as the Original ELF, was the first radical group to use explosive and incendiary devices to promote pro-environment causes. It was founded by John Hanna, who was the only member of the group to be arrested and convicted for the use of explosives on federal property. Although it was an eco-guerilla entity with similar philosophies to the current ELF (Earth Liberation Front), which formed fifteen years later, there was no formal link between the two groups, and founders of the Earth Liberation Front may not have even been aware of the existence of the Environmental Life Force. Despite this, it has acknowledged in written communications that Dave Foreman, who founded Earth First! three years after the original ELF, was in communication with Hanna in the mid-1980s, before the Earth Liberation Front was founded, which was after Foreman cut ties with the Earth First! movement.

Police response, and convictions

First ELF arrest

In 1994, Dutch authorities and police made claims that British ELF activists were travelling abroad to cause sabotage, which were disputed by ELF. Later that year the first Earth Liberation Prisoner (ELP) was caught and later charged. Known as Paul S., he was arrested and accused of carrying out an 18-month campaign of vandalism in the Netherlands against road construction sites. The Dutch government attempted to declare him insane, because of his inability to provide a political reason for his actions, other than his care for the environment. This was unsuccessful and the prisoner was sentenced to three years for damaging property.

British police raids

Due to the increased popularity of the environmental movement, as well as the animal liberation movement and estimates that five ALF actions occurred per day, police carried out a series of raids against animal rights and environmental activists. In total, there were 55 homes raided against suspected ALF and ELF activists, including an individual in Italy. The police had not managed to charge anyone with any illegal activities, until on January 16, 1996, when six men were charged for a five-year ALF/ELF campaign. They were sentenced a year later each to three years for conspiracy to incite violence in the name of animal and earth liberation.

Operation Backfire

Daniel G. McGowan was charged for two counts of arson and conspiracy in the FBI's "Operation Backfire". He pleaded guilty to avoid a life sentence, without testifying against his co-defendants, some of whom had done so against him.

 

The term Green Scare, alluding to the Red Scares, periods of fear over communist infiltration of U.S. society, is a term popularized by environmental activists to refer to legal action by the U.S. government against the radical environmentalist movement. 

It is first known to have appeared in 2002 in the wake of the February 12 congressional hearings titled "The Threat of Eco-Terrorism" which discussed groups including the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) and the Animal Liberation Front (ALF). In late 2005 and early 2006, as part of Operation Backfire, US grand juries indicted a total of 18 activists on a range of charges related to "violent acts in the name of animal rights and environmental causes". According to the FBI, many of these acts were carried out on behalf of the ELF and was considered as one of the largest arrests of environmental activists in American history.

The operation resulted in the arrest of Chelsea Dawn Gerlach, William C. Rodgers, and Daniel McGowan.

In 2008, the FBI increased the reward for handing over four suspects to $50,000. The four, two Americans and two Canadians, are believed to have fled the U.S. through Mexico and are possibly hiding in Syria, Russia, China or India. The announcement of an increased manhunt came on the tenth anniversary of the bombing in Vail.

A 2011 NPR report claimed some of the people associated with this group were imprisoned in a highly restrictive Communication management unit. 

Cooperation with the ALF

Philosophy

The name "Animal & Earth Liberation Front" or "Earth & Animal Liberation Front" (ALF and ELF, respectively) is commonly used when undertaking an animal liberation action, that is inclusively an environmental issue. Or alternatively an ELF action that includes in some way liberating or rescuing animals; for example actions to protect the forests. Both names are also used by radical activists when engaging in direct action to liberate animals and defend the earth by using property destruction. This is done within the guidelines of the Animal/Earth Liberation Front; to claim the action by both groups.

• Radical environmentalists consider the ELF to be the environmental wing of the Animal Liberation Front, effectively acting as the Eco-ALF. Evidence of this include names used such as the "Westcountry Wildlife Cell" and then later "ALF: Eco-Animal Defense Unit".
• The ELF is also considered to be the ALF's younger sister, forming 16 years later and due to the fact that the guidelines, as well as the name itself, were derived from the movement.
• Despite the movements only forming alliances in 1996/1997, activists such as Rod Coronado were known to be active in both the ALF and ELF dating back before the names were officially used together.

Noel Molland, a former ELF activist, writes in Steven Best's Igniting a Revolution that:

The founders of the ELF wanted radical environmentalists to work on the same basis and have a similar name, hoping that people would instantly understand how the ELF operated and what its goals were.

History

During the mid-1990s, the Western Wildlife Unit, an ELF branch in Britain, were responsible for various acts of animal rights themed violence. The vandalism included spiking trees as well as targeting anglers. However, it wasn't until sometime later, in the United States, that a joint claim of responsibility was made. 

Molland also writes that the first established ALF and ELF action was established on March 14, 1997, when the "Animal Liberation Front – Eco-Animal Defense Unit" claimed the spiking of 47 trees in a clearcut area, Oregon. This was only a few months after the fur farm had been raided by the Great Lakes ELF, which also highlighted the overlap in direct action for animal rights and environmentalism. The groups intention was to state that the farm they had raided was a joint effort between members of the Animal and Earth Liberation Front.

Five days later, the "Bay Area Cell of the Earth and Animal Liberation Front" claimed the fire bombing of the University of California, an animal research laboratory that was still under construction at the time. Also later that year, on November 29, there was another joint ALF & ELF claim, this time releasing 500 wild horses and torching the Bureau of Land Management in Burns, in protest of BLM's intention to round up the wild horses and process them for the sale of horsemeat.

However, this claim contradicts the Southern Poverty Law Center, which states that the first incident of cooperation between the two movements was 6 months prior to these events on October 27, 1996, when the ALF & ELF were both responsible for firebombing a Forest Service truck in Detroit, Oregon. Then three days later both groups claimed the arson at the U.S. Forest Service Oakridge Ranger Station, at the cost of $5.3 million.

It was then reported that a week before the Bay Area cells fur farm raid, on March 11, 1997, four trucks were torched, at the Agricultural Fur Breeders Co-Op. The damage totaled $1 million and the action was again claimed by the ALF & ELF.

As the ELF was becoming well established through its own actions, on 21 June 1998, the United States Forest Service wildlife research centre near Olympia, Washington was set on fire with "Eco-Defense" and "Earth Liberation" spray painted on construction machinery, which had received extensive damage in New Jersey on the 2nd Feb. Both the actions were claimed jointly by the ALF & ELF, and were estimated to have caused one of the worst damages yet, estimated at $1.9 million. The same claim was made when 310 animals were taken from a fur farm involved in experimental research based in Madison, Wisconsin, which were stolen on the 3rd of July.

Actions

A fire by an ALF cell; the Oxford Arson Squad, causing £500,000 in damages to Londbridges boathouse, Oxfordshire on 4 July 2005.

 

Actions claimed by both the ALF and ELF jointly have appeared across the globe, nearly as much as the ELF has, causing more activists from the ALF and other movements to become involved; believing in "No Compromise in Defence of Mother Earth", a popular Earth First! slogan used and populated in the 1980s.

Despite this, in comparison to the ALF, there have been few communiques in recent years that have been released to the media or ELF Press Offices. This is largely due to the style of the ELF, who are much less likely to report their actions, or even leave a message to notify their targets regarding why they have been attacked.

Although ALF and ELF combined actions have continued, one of the latest string of jointly claimed arsons was publicised was in November 2002, when activists sent a communique to Bite Back and also the ELF Press Office, claiming responsibility for the arson at Mindek Brothers Fur Farm. In a press release, the groups stated the reason for their action:

Working together, cells from A.L.F. & E.L.F. demolished this feed facility due to its role in the systematic torture and killing of thousands of innocent creatures yearly – animals which possess the same complex emotional/physiological traits as loved household pets, yet are denied all reasonable consideration and confined to a miserable "existence" in tiny wire cages hardly large enough to turn around in.

In popular culture

• Folk musician David Rovics performs a song dedicated to the ELF called "Song for the Earth Liberation Front".
• In the novel by Nicholas Evans, The Divide, a main character is involved in ELF activities.
• In 2011, a documentary on the ELF by Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Marshall Curry entitled If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front had its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. It has since been released on DVD by Oscilloscope Laboratories. It was broadcast on BBC Four in February 2012 as part of the Storyville documentary series.
• In 2005, the ELF were the subject of a CBS 60 Minutes report called "Burning Rage" and another from CNN.
• In 2009 the ELF were the subject of a documentary called Green With A Vengeance.

Criticism

The FBI designated the ELF as "eco-terrorists". Representative Scott McInnis, then chairman of the US House Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health, subpoenaed Craig Rosebraugh in an effort to investigate the ELF's activities. On hearing Rosebraugh's testimony, McInnis suggested it was "luck" no one has been killed by an ELF (or ALF) attack.

Despite the leaderless nature of the movement, the FBI says that activist Rod Coronado is "a national leader" of the ELF in the USA, while Coronado describes himself as an "unofficial ELF spokesman".