It was precisely this 'liberal' concept that was implemented in the Czech environmental movement and systematically developed in trainings, movement materials, everyday praxis and in the biggest environmental campaigns of the 1990s, where the identity and public image of the environmental movement was formed. Here, I refer specifically to campaigns such as those to save Libkovice village from destruction owing to coal mining at the turn of 1992 and 1993, or those against the end-phase of the construction of the Temelín nuclear power-plant between 1995 and 1997. In both campaigns, and especially in the case of Temelín, many different worldviews such as ecological, subcultural (mostly punk), and anarchist merged as people met during blockades. However during these actions, the instrumental use of politics in the form of the liberal concept of direct action clashed with the anarchistic concept of direct action, which has also been one of the characteristics of third wave radical environmentalism. The blockades at the construction site of Temelín were organised by the leadership of *Hnutí Duha*, which used direct action as a form of lobbying, and as a way to bring media and public attention to the issue. However, the blockade was organised hierarchically, and people were left feeling that they were an "infantry under command" (an interview with one of the former activists of *Hnutí Duha* and a later activist of *Nesehnutí*, 2011), without possibilities to participate in decision-making. Moreover, the leadership of *Hnutí Duha* wanted not only to dominate the blockades but also to be hegemon of the anti-nuclear movement. This instrumentalisation of direct actions, and generally the battle between environmental groups for dominance and power, created tensions with more anarchistic segments of the anti-nuclear blockades.

With regard to the conservation-focused environmentalism from before 1989, *Hnutí Duha* and to a lesser extent *Děti Země* became Czech versions of 'radical environmentalisms'. In this context, these groups used a non-conventional repertoire of actions such as blockades anchored in the liberal notion of direct action (no matter how conventional these actions were in the West as part of a moderated second wave), because under the previous authoritarian state socialist regime, this kind of action—and even common street demonstrations—was banned.

This environmentalism brought to a rapidly transforming postsocialist society a strong critique of consumerist society, of trans-national corporations, and economic growth, as well as questions and new ideas about the valuation of nature itself. Precisely in this context the activities of these groups, and especially of *Hnutí Duha* in the first half of the 1990s, could be understood as radical. In a society under transition and intent on 'catching up' with the West, these environmental actors sought to carefully seek alternatives—not openly and directly to capitalism, but rather to consumer society. 'Catching up' in this time applied not only to the economy and governance, but to environmental thought, critique and practice.

#### De-Radicalisation

As mentioned above, during big ecological campaigns such as those at Libkovice or Temelín, many different kinds of people merged, including anarchists and punk rockers. Even though it was common at the beginning of the 1990s for environmentalists and anarchists to co-operate, from the end of 1993 onwards, Jakub Patočka, the charismatic founder of *Hnutí Duha*, started to strongly disagree with coalitions formed with anarchists because he disagreed with their ideas, alternative cultures (he considered punk to be an electronic noise) and their "unclear relation to violence" (Patočka, 1993). There was also a very practical reason for this refusal to cooperate: anarchists were much stronger in numbers than *Hnutí Duha*, and they could conceivably have overtaken the movement as an ecological flagship for their own anarchism and taken it in an anarchist direction, thus changing the entire remit and objective of environmentalism. This threat was likely the real reason to "recall certain distance and differences" (Patočka, 1999: 20): from the mid-1990s, Patočka started to build strong boundaries between the Rainbow Movement (and thus the entire environmental movement, in which the *Hnutí Duha* was about to play a hegemonic role), and the anarchist movement. In the 1990s, anarchists were one of the few opponents of skinhead youths' racist violence and were willing to confront them violently in the streets. It was mainly due to these clashes, portrayed by the media as clashes between two gangs, that they were called violent. In addition, together with their criticism of the state and capitalism, they were labelled as left-wing extremists by police and the media, but also by some of the environmental NGOs.

Jakub Patočka defined on behalf of *Hnutí Duha* and the ecological movement in general why it was unacceptable to cooperate with anarchists — the main reason was that anarchists had an unclear relationship to violence, whereas the ecological movement was strictly non-violent. There were also other kinds of arguments apart from the violence question, but the friction was seen to focus mainly around practical issues. When anarchists took part in *Hnutí* actions, no matter if they acted violently or not — and I do not remember where they were violent — they were put on notice that their participation was not welcomed (interview with activists from *Hnutí Duha,* 2011*)*.

Another tension was produced by the internal hierarchy and nondemocratic structure of the movement, combined with its authoritarian leadership. This became evident in the hierarchically organised blockades of Temelín. Patočka's rejection of anarchists led to a reaction from the anarchists, who started to distance themselves in turn from *Hnutí Duha*, and the whole NGO sector. In the mid-1990s, a dogmatic version of social anarchism became stronger and stronger and contributed to firm boundaries between environmentalists and anarchists. Groups such as the Federation of Social Anarchists started to promote an opinion that refused any cooperation with environmental and non-governmental organisations and labelled them, together with anarchists willing to cooperate, "collaborators": "The task, […] is foremost to untie every relation with democratic, 'green' collaborators, because it is precisely these organisations that bring anarchists to the edge of a cliff" (PW, 1998: 3).

Structural factors strengthened these boundaries as well. After the victory of Václav Klaus in the parliamentary election of 1992, environmental organisations started to be perceived as a brake that was slowing down, or preventing, the country from catching up with the West. The winners of the Velvet Revolution were gradually grouped on the side of losers: this process culminated in 1995, when these groups were put on the Ministry of Interior's list of extremist organisations (Fagan, 2004).

It was important for non-governmental environmental organisations, to start to prove their non-extremist positions by stressing their modesty, as their reputations were fragile and problematic considering that they had previously—albeit briefly—partnered and linked up with, through donors and media image orientations, anarchists officially labelled as extremists. Environmentalists actively distanced themselves by emphasising their non-violence and their constructive approach from within the system. Greenpeace Czech Republic decided for example to follow a strategy that emphasised scientific argumentation and expert knowledge at the expense of emotional presentations (Jehlička, 2009) from this time on:

*Hnutí Duha* started in those times to advance lobbying methods as well as a strategy of cooperation with some parties. The movement published recommendations around which party to vote for and which to avoid. During lobbying for laws, personal ties emerged. And the common argument was that when we cooperate with anarchists, there is no chance to advance lobbying (interview with an activist from *Hnutí Duha,* 2011).

Distancing from the anarchists and a refusal to cooperate with them became part of the self-disciplining that environmental organisations undertook during the consolidation of liberal capitalism in the country. Even though placing such groups on the extremist list actually helped to normalise their existence, as they did not perceive themselves (nor act) as challengers of the status quo, it did not prevent a discourse of environmentalism as a threat to freedoms and economic development from emerging (Klaus, 2007; 2009).

One can trace the shift within the *Hnutí Duha* agenda from more radical alternative seekers to 'system fixers' to between the years 1997 and 1998. In 1997, the movement stopped organising blockades of Temelín and direct actions generally. Their self-presentation in annual reports changed as well. Between 1995 and 1997 one could read that industrial civilisation was unsustainable, that economic growth was an undertaking to be criticised together with a particular vision of 'progress', and that non-violent direct actions were legitimate. The goal of *Hnutí Duha* at this time was not to give rise to shallow, inconsequential changes, but to highlight and withdraw from the roots of systemic problems, to challenge and change societal values away from consumption to frugality, and to enable societal change through the promotion of localised, deliberative decision-making processes closer to people affected by interventions and decisions, wherein local communities should be empowered and the importance of economic aspects mitigated by other relevant considerations.

The change in reports come from 1998—the first year that *Hnutí Duha* did not organise or take part in the Temelín blockades, and instead adopted a lobbying strategy. The first sentence from the report modified and made clear the new aims of the organisation, stating that its goal was to advance nature's recovery, to change people's values from narrowminded consumerism towards a democracy of engaged citizens. *Hnutí Duha*'s efforts came to be concentrated around everybody living well on Earth. Another year later, aims to change values of people and society were replaced with aims to make efficient and realistic acquisitions that would enable limitations on and decreases to pollution. One can still read about system arrangements, but no longer in the context of unsustainable society and civilisation trends, and rather in the context of reforms of mineral mining charges, reforms required to a packaging law, or as part of the liberalisation of the electricity market (Binka, 2008: 136– 37). Thus, the Czech environmental 'movement' through *Hnutí Duha* as hegemon definitively moved away from a politically-supported basis of negotiation, discussion and dissensus to consensual post-politics within a post-socialist version of neoliberalism. This trajectory was similar to their inspirational patterns of second wave environmentalism, but it lasted for a shorter time.

The Czech environmental movement thus went through a similar cycle to western movements in the '90s, albeit with a delay: from radicalisation to introducing nature into politics, to institutionalisation, de-radicalisation and co-optation of the movement by the capitalist status quo. The difference was that no 'third wave' radical environmentalism subsequently replaced it, and instead of a multi-dimensional social movement, several mainstream, professional advocacy ENGOs focused on lobbying and negotiating with the state administration and the commercial sphere became dominant after 2000. This consensual depoliticisation was enhanced in 2004 when the Czech Republic joined the EU, as the EU urged a particularly technical approach to the environmental agenda. Thus, laws to protect nature were not an outcome of compromise as a result of mobilisation and pressure from below, but from above, predominantly from Brussels by means of bureaucratic directives.

#### 'New Wave' Radicalisation Post-2015

This state of affairs changed around 2015, when the *Limity jsme my* (LJM) movement was formed. This began with campaigns and protests against coal mining, and in 2017 the LJM organised the first climate camp through mass direct action to occupy a coal mine. LJM was predominantly formed as a result of activists' experiences in German climate camps organised by Ende Gelände. They represent an example of radical climate movement activism, by which I understand the struggles for "System Change, not Climate Change" as referring to the need to overhaul the political and economic system that fundamentally gives rise to climate change (Temper, 2019).

The climate camps and activities of LJM not only emphasised nonhierarchical horizontality and a repertoire of activities that focused on mass direct actions, but also the adoption of a system-level critique that tried to politicise environmental issues and the climate crisis by aiming

Fig. 1. Direct action of LJM in 2017 (occupying the mine). Photograph by Majda Slámová (2017).

at the systemic nature of the effects of climate change and the ways in which it was connected with political power and the fossil fuel industry. The movement began to reunite people from different backgrounds, including anarchist and counter-cultural ones as in the first half of the 1990s. In contrast to the previous era, much more effort was put into capacity-building to create a non-hierarchical grassroots movement. An important role in the intermingling of different milieus was played by Klinika, the autonomous social centre in Prague, which at the time of the formation of *Limit jsme* served not only as an inspiration for radical activism, but as an important space for encountering these different milieus (Novák and Kuřík, 2020; Novák, 2021).

In their manifesto they wrote:

We are part of a global movement […] We feel solidarity with people mostly affected by climate change and ecological problems. We are aware that ecological problems cannot be separated from social and economic issues […] We work non-hierarchically, we do not have bosses, we are independent of political parties. […] We stand for direct action. Radical politics, which intends to solve deeper causes of social problems, has never been successful without direct action […] Direct action is our main, although not exclusive, means of changing and mobilising society […] We want to change the system, not the climate!" (Manifesto LJM, 2017)

To a much greater extent, the new environmentalism is aligned with the anarchist concept of direct action, however, it is not understood instrumentally. An anarchist direct action is not primarily instrumental, but a goal and a value in itself:

Direct action is not only a tactic; it is an effort of people to enforce control over one's life and to participate in social life without the need of mediation or control from the side of bureaucrats and professional politicians. Direct action places a moral commitment over a positive law. Direct action is not the ultimate possibility, when all other possibilities fail, but it is a preferred way of action (Doherty, Plows, Wall, 2003: 670).

Unlike the 1990s, the contemporary movement's organisers are not burdened with the dogmatic reasoning of a 'pure' radical politics and are able to think much more strategically. For this reason, they are able to cooperate with mainstream ENGOs even if they disagree on broader issues or tactics. When the government set up a coal commission (to talk about the end to and transition away from coal), where the commission's composition favoured the fossil industry, ENGO representatives decided to accept the invitation. LJM criticised this decision, but at the same time accepted their own invitation as they reasoned that it was a route to putting even more pressure on the commission from below (which is a common strategy with moderate ENGOs).

Through capacity-building (often with the cooperation of moderate second-wave organisations such as Czech Greenpeace or *Hnutí Duha*, as they use their infrastructures), LJM have also mobilised more people, with a growing number participating at the 2018 and 2019 climate camps. In March 2019 Czech high school students took part, for the first time, in a large number of strikes that helped bring the issue of climate change into the public sphere. Several founders of the Czech 'Friday for the Future' strike had previous experiences with LJM's climate camps.

The year 2019 was important because, as in Great Britain, the Extinction Rebellion (XR) movement originated and organised several civil disobedience actions. Unlike LJM, which focuses on blockades of fossil fuel infrastructure and system-based critiques of economic growth or occasionally fossil capitalism, XR have chosen a different strategy. Specifically, they have focused on blockades around individual transport aimed at disrupting people's regular daily routines and thus forcing them to take an interest in the climate crisis, particularly as XR target the effects and influence of fossil corporations and their associated infrastructure (mines, powerplants). XR have also chosen a different communication line. Their moralising arguments mention consumerism more and focus on rousing and motivating individuals into action and participation. This corresponds with their tactics of blockading car and bus traffic in Prague. This differing strategy has stirred up frictions within the climate activism movement in the Czech Republic and provoked disputes about tactics and strategy. In contrast to the '90s, this has not led to exclusionary disagreement and differing trajectories between groups.

Thus, in 2019 a climate movement that is more than just environmental has emerged. It is not only centred around a few NGOs that function according to the principle of transactional activism. Besides climate camps and movements trying to articulate a radical system critique and re-figure society for climatic equality, new organisations are emerging. Secondary school strikes such as Fridays for Future (FFF), which appeal to and target the government and key decision-makers on the issue of climate change, or the Czech branch of XR, combine a moralising tone with an occasional apocalyptic undertone. Together with NGOs like *Hnutí Duha* or Greenpeace, these are beginning to constitute a movement that is diverse in terms of climate change causes, analysis and potential response strategy. LJM are striving to break post-political conditions and to re-politicise the topic of climate change and instigate mobilisation from below: their grassroots political activism mobilises predominantly younger people without previous activist experience. XR, through their deliberate depoliticisation and lack of engagement with 'left' or 'right' politics, and their adoption of moralistic and apocalyptic argumentation, are able to mobilise people of diverse ages as well as those without any prior experience of activism.

All environmental groups share an inspiration by and continuation of the practice of environmentalism and protest tactics from abroad. LJM were inspired by the German Ende Gelände as they try to re-shape the inspiration to fit the Czech context. They use tactics such as mass direct actions in white overalls and adopt a strategy that focuses on

fossil infrastructures, combined with systemic criticism, and as a result of its post-socialist context, without strong or explicit critique of capitalism. Secondary school students are picking up the threads and example of Greta Thunberg and FFF abroad, as are Czech XR from their UK founders. Some XR participants label themselves as a branch of the English founders; others find re-shaping XR's concept from the English to the Czech context quite schematic and unproblematic. Nevertheless, this orientation to foreign environmentalism helps us realise the extent to which these differing strands of the present climate movement relate to politics. While LJM represents activism that is not state-oriented (as they are beyond the state) as they try to formulate alternative political visions by their actions (degrowth, democratisation of power engineering and climate justice), FFF and XR are much more state-oriented as they target, address, and invite governments to act. This approach arguably threatens to keep solutions to the climate crisis within the boundaries of the present capitalist status quo. As FFF also argue that we should abide by the assertions of scientists, they contribute to the further depoliticisation of the climate crisis as they reify and re-frame it as a technical problem. Like XR, the depoliticisation of knowledge-making systems and proffered scientific 'solutions' displaces alternative visions of social organisation as they emphasise and elicit fear, apocalypticism and moralising around individuals' behaviour.

In any case, 2019 has brought remarkable activity and change to within the environmental and climate movement, which is becoming a major social player once again. These developments have given rise to a space in which debates and conflicts around environmental futures may be newly, differently, and deliberatively negotiated. One might say that in 2019, the environmental movement and the climate movement have become a social movement (Doherty, 2002). It has a consciously collective identity, with activists acting partly outside political institutions, using protest as one of its forms of action, and is characterised by un-institutionalised networks of interaction as mainstream institutions are rejected by large parts of the movement so as to better challenge dominant forms of power.

It is currently a movement with great momentum and potential. Despite their confrontational repertoire of action (which has not previously been very popular within Czech society) such as the

Fig. 2. Blockade of main roads in the centre of Prague, action of XR in 2019. Photograph by Petr Zewlakk Vrabec (2019).

occupations of mines, strikes and blockades, climate groups have garnered public support. According to a survey from December 2019, sympathy for high school climate strikes in the Czech Republic slightly outweighed those who disliked them (36% vs. 33%); sympathy for the *Limity jsme my* initiative was significantly more positive than negative (37% vs. 28%); and only in the case of Czech Extinction Rebellion were respondents significantly more unsympathetic (49%) than sympathetic (28%) (MEDIAN, 2019).

#### Conclusion

Based on these insights and review, it is possible to say that the composition of environmental activism has changed from a narrow, topic-based, and rather apolitical conservation approach during the era of state-socialism, to a brief, politically-inclusive upswing that examined the possibilities of a consumerist-free market society at the beginning of the 1990s, to its deradicalisation towards the end of the '90s when environmentalists became 'system fixers' of the post-socialist version of capitalism. Subsequent activism around climate change re-opened what could be debated, negotiated and done, and has today brought about

radical critique. Debate about systemic change is conducted increasingly in the public sphere together with a non-conventional repertoire of civil disobedience and direct action, as both these approaches embrace a more participative activism.

There are several possible reasons to explain why this long-term process of de-radicalisation, institutionalisation and de-politicisation has been reversed by a cycle of radicalisation and politicisation. There are some external structural reasons, including a question of agency and also the interplay between these factors. Climate change is increasingly understood not only as an ecological, but also as a social, problem. The contemporary third wave of environmentalism in the Czech Republic is more akin to a social-ecological movement that refuses and disputes depoliticised environments that originate from technical, managerial and consensual administrations and experts (cf. Swyngedouw, 2011). Second, after the failure of the Copenhagen COP in 2009, some moderate organisations radicalised and shifted their focus towards the concept of climate justice. The Czech Greenpeace and *Hnutí Duha* (as part of Friends of the Earth International) were part of this international debate and shift. Third, neoliberal hegemony collapsed in the country after the financial crisis of 2008–2009. The protests against the austerity politics of the right-wing government in 2011 and 2012 in the Czech Republic were a manifestation of this collapse. Subsequently, a new generation of young people, especially at universities, has been brought to politics through these protests. After the 2013 fall of the government, many became politicised and continued their protest activities within the environmental and climate justice movement.

These factors and events together mean that radicalisation and politicisation of the movement is not only due to political opportunities and windows, but is also a result of the agency of individuals and groups and their perceptions and strategies to communicate the existential threat and urgency of modern environmental crises and challenges. These have culminated in the intentional creation of a different kind and way of doing politics.

#### References

——, 2008. *Politický aktivismus v České republice. Sociální hnutí a občanská společnost v období transformace a evropeizace*. CDK, Brno.

## 3. The Construction of Climate Justice Imaginaries through Resistance in the Czech Republic and Poland

## *Mikulás Černìk*

Today, the use of coal—and control over it as a resource—is increasingly contested. Environmentalists tend to demand a post-carbon transformation, while the coal industry and the state seek to secure the continued use of coal. According to Huber and McCarthy (2017), subterranean fossil resources enabled the shift from a derivation of power through control over land and territory, to its derivation through control over machines and labour. Yet regions of fossil fuel extraction remain crucial for the power of the state, where these regions carry at the same time the unevenly distributed negative consequences of mining (Frantál and Nováková, 2014). State energy sovereignty based around domestic production of coal fosters local extractivism, resulting not only in the destruction of the environment but also in a comparably worse quality of life in the regions of extraction.

Resistance to coal mining can alleviate or even reverse this extractive relationship. Resistance may lead to an articulation of views and alternatives around futures without coal, not only locally in coalproducing regions, but also by highlighting and questioning the uneven impacts of climate change caused by coal combustion. The nexus between energy metabolism and political and economic power has a 'glo-cal' nature, exemplified by Klein's term "Blockadia" (2015), which connects local cases of resistance to fossil infrastructure as part of the same movement. Local conflicts are not just isolated cases but have global, political, and economic implications. They show the power of participants to intervene in the mitigation of climate change, an endeavour in which global leaders have failed. Yet, in each place, resistance creates specific risks to local power structures, giving voice to new groups and creating new dynamics and dependencies—and also provokes new state responses and regulatory powers.

In this chapter I am following the narrow definition of an overt resistance mentioned by Hollander and Einwohner (2004). Resistance is not only an intended act—it also has to be recognised as resistance by observers. Protests against coal mining—as acts of resistance—politicise nature-society relationships, and can be seen as acts of citizenship (Rasch and Köhne, 2016), but also provide a distinction between civil and uncivil actors (D'Alisa et al., 2013). As with other ecological distribution conflicts, resistance to coal mining could become a driver of sustainability, but also a driver of climate change mitigation (Temper et al., 2018). "Politics occurs wherever a community with a capacity to argue and to make metaphors is likely" (Rancière, 1999: 60): the capacity to argue goes beyond mere participation in a public debate, such as setting demands for politicians, or calling for certain legislative procedures. It is the ability to create an argument as a new frontline of political conflict that cannot be ignored or disregarded. In the case explored here, it is an expression of disagreement and discontent towards the corporate-statemining complex which fosters the dependency of energy metabolism on coal. Such 'arguments' are a vital part of the demands of a radical democracy with alternative imaginaries (Lloyd, 2009).

This chapter provides an overview of the protest events organised by climate justice movements across two regions of lignite extraction in Poland and the Czech Republic—namely the North Bohemian Coal Basin and the Konin Basin. Although we can talk of a global climate justice movement, its manifestation, actions and power to affect energy metabolism vary in different areas, and I will explore these in an eastern European (EE) context. We can understand the climate justice movement as a polycentric struggle, where simultaneous and mutually coordinated tactics and approaches are deployed around the globe and against various levels of governance (Tormos‐Aponte and García‐López, 2018). However, we can observe two different streams of the climate justice movement with regard to the hallmark of global climate politics, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) summits. First, there are the reformist organisations, who observe and participate in the climate summits, known as Conferences of Parties (COP). The second, more revolutionary stream is intent on creating a different, radical and bottom-up politics. Climate camps are an example of the latter stream, which does not mean that they create a homogenous space. On the contrary, other authors observe divergent streams within the climate justice movement, such as leftists and environmentalists, anarchists and formal NGO participants, and all these groups have been present at the camps under consideration here (Reitan and Gibson, 2012; Saunders and Price, 2009; see also Novák, Chapter 2 in this volume).

Belonging to the broad and diverse tradition of protest camps (Frenzel et al., 2014), climate camps emerged in the UK in 2006 (Bergman, 2014; Russell et al., 2017; Saunders and Price, 2009), and during the last few years have been organised by climate justice movements in other European countries, notably in Germany. In EE, a climate justice movement has emerged only very recently. This is due to the specific situation of environmental activism in these countries, historically driven by the dependency on coal, on the one hand, and a prevalence of liberal environmentalism and transactional activism dependent on institutional funding on the other (Císař, 2010; see also Novák, Chapter 2). Actions of mass civil disobedience were relatively rare for environmental movements in European post-socialist countries. This chapter explores how the organisation and arrival of climate camps have changed this.

Below, I provide an overview of disruptive and constructive aspects of resistance during climate camps organised in the Czech Republic and Poland. To do so, I will first briefly describe the importance of coal for energy production in these countries. I will elaborate on the regional characteristics of extraction and energy policy in both states, as well as previous public mobilisations against coal. The empirical part is then divided into two sections. In the first, I will provide an overview of disruptive elements of the resistance, conducted against the power that controls the use of lignite reserves. In the second, I will focus on the aspects and conditions through and in which the movement creates a space for new, counter-hegemonic imaginaries.

### The Importance of Lignite for Poland and Czech Republic

The Czech Republic, Poland and Germany are called the "European coal heartland" (Osička et al., 2020) because of their importance to overall European coal production. Whereas in Germany state policies and contingent roadmaps have deliberately transitioned to phase out coal, both Poland and the Czech Republic are reluctant to follow this path. In these latter two countries a steady decline has been observed in recent decades in the share of coal within overall energy production, as well as employment. Since the late 1980s, the share of coal had decreased to 47% of installed capacity by 2017 for the Czech Republic, and 70% of installed capacity in 2018 for Poland. The share of lignite is more significant in the Czech Republic than in Poland, where hard coal is a dominant resource (ERÚ, 2018; Macuk et al., 2019). In absolute numbers, coal production peaked in 1984 at around 100 million tonnes of coal a year in the Czech Republic and at 201 million tonnes a year in 1971 in Poland, which made it the biggest coal producer in Europe at that time, excluding the Soviet Union (Andersson, 1999; Kuskova et al., 2008).

State energy policies and the national long-term strategies of both countries are showing no clear plan to phase out coal. However, in Czechia, State Energy Policy (SEP) is factoring in a decline of 11–21% share of coal in energy production (MPO, 2014). Meanwhile, in Poland, SEP aims to maintain 60% of electricity generation from coal (Ministry of Energy, 2018). A recent study conducted by Climate Action Network Europe (Flisowska and Moore, 2019) shows a contradictory approach taken by both countries, whereby they are involved in funding for a 'just transition' while at the same time lack a clear plan for coal phase-out.

Resistance to lignite mining emerged in the interplay between opportunities to influence and eventually stop mining, and was exacerbated by the local effects and scale of physical mining activities. This situation is different across coal regions, not only because of the extent of coal reserves, but also because of the prospects of the lignite mining companies. Some mines and powerplants are more vulnerable to closure than others—this vulnerability is determined partly as a result of legislative procedures, partly due to their economic prospects, and to the role of public opposition. Therefore, it is important to describe the conditions in which climate camps are situated in the respective lignite extraction regions under consideration here.

Approximately 75% of overall lignite production in the Czech Republic comes from the North Bohemian Basin region, and most of the potentially extractable reserves of lignite are located there. Given the importance of lignite for domestic energy production, this makes the region crucial for the Czech Republic. There are three open cast mines operating in the area, two of which belong to a private conglomerate, Severní Energetická, which operates the ČSA mine, and its daughter company, Vršanská Uhelná, which operates the Vršany mine. The third mine in the region, Bílina, is operated by a national energy company, Severočeské doly (a daughter company of ČEZ). A renegotiated governmental resolution expanding the territorial limits to mining at Bílina mine will prolong mining there beyond 2035 and the overall amount of extracted coal is expected to be up to an extra 150 million tonnes of lignite ("Severočeské doly a.s.," n.d.).

In Poland on the other hand, the Konin Basin used to produce approximately 13 million tonnes of lignite a year, out of 53 million tonnes of lignite total (Konin Basin is one of four areas in total, out of which Belchatów Basin, with 41 million tonnes of lignite a year, is the biggest) (Mazurek and Tymiński, 2019). Lignite is not as important a fuel in overall installed capacity as it is in the Czech Republic. It constitutes a share of 21%, whereas hard coal accounts for 49% ("Energy Transition in Poland — Forum Energii," n.d.). Several open cast lignite mines are located in the Konin Basin, which are nearing the end of their reserves. The mines in operation at the time of writing are Jozwin, Drzewce and Tomislawice. Whereas Jozwin and Drzewce are close to full depletion of their reserves, the Tomislawice open-pit mine—the only open cast mine to open in Poland after it joined the EU—is facing legal obstruction. Altogether, lignite production in the region decreased to approximately 6 million tonnes a year and thus there has been pressure to open the Osczislowo lignite mine in the region. All of these belong to a private venture, ZE-PAK (Ministerstwo Energii, 2018). In sum, lignite mining is close to reaching its limits at several mines and there is a drive to expand the limits at existing open pits (at Bílina mine, for example) or to open new open-cast mines (for example at Osczislowo).

Although the importance of the lignite mined in both regions is very different for the overall energy metabolism of the respective states (in the North Bohemian Basin it is rather crucial, unlike in the Konin Basin), there are commonalities in their "coal culture". This term refers to the way that the region is strongly connected to the heritage of industrial lignite mining (Brown and Spiegel, 2019; Kuchler and Bridge, 2018). The term "corporate-state-mining complex" attends to the interconnectedness of market mechanisms and state power in public-private ventures, whereby the population is socially engineered through the creation of financial dependency on sponsorship and funding by mining companies on the part of municipalities (Brock and Dunlap, 2018). For example, fees and taxes distributed to the communities affected by mining provide an important source of finance, but they also play an important role in facilitating the approval of mining activity by local authorities and inhabitants (Badera and Kocoń, 2014).

At the same time, both localities share a strong history of resistance to mining. Participants of the climate camp identified local referenda as milestones in the struggle against coal, as their organisation and campaigning involved the public in the decision-making process about the prospects of coal mining. The size of the settlements, attendance, and questions posed in the referenda, differed in each case (see Table 1).

Local referenda held in Horní Jiřetín (CZ) and Babiak commune (PL) were both organised by municipal representatives and the results—in which more than 90% of attendees voted against the expansion of coal mining in both cases—became legally binding, as attendance reached the required quora. The referendum in Litvínov (CZ) was initiated by the local organisation *Kořeny* and did not meet the quorum necessary for a legally-binding result. Yet, 95% of attendees voted against coal mining expansion. Not only are the actual results of the referenda important, but the mobilisation of the public and collaboration with NGOs helped to establish personal connections between various actors. The importance of the referenda for overall decision-making processes has been rather limited, as the power of national authorities goes beyond the power of affected municipalities.

Fig. 1. Front banner of the march leaving Klimakemp in 2018 reads: "Do not change the climate, change ourselves. End coal." Photograph courtesy of Petr Vrabec (2018).

Local resistance with tangible results, such as local referenda, creates a fertile ground in which new forms of resistance can then take root, especially when certain forms of injustice remain. Lignite combustion contributes enormously to carbon dioxide emissions and thus to climate change. Climate camps thus contest the causes of climate change in the very areas where fossil fuel extraction takes place and usually share several common objectives: 1) they are an open and horizontal, self-organised space; 2) they are a sustainable, prefigurative event; 3) they foster communication among people in the movement; 4) they provide a safe space near fossil infrastructure for organising direct action against it. Mass direct civil disobedience is one of the defining traits of the climate justice movement and provides a substantial point of differentiation between separate streams in the climate movement (Kenis and Mathijs, 2014). Direct action has moved from global climate summits to the ground-zero of fossil fuel extraction (de Moor, 2020). Unlike the goal of civil disobedient action during the summit—that is, to block and disrupt negotiations during formal meetings (Chatterton et al., 2013)—the goal of direct action during camps is to block the operation of the mining machines.

More than that, they provide a place to contest worldviews through the solidarity-based interactions on which they are literally built (Kaufmann et al., 2019). Each climate camp is a site- and context-specific event, altering its name according to the local context. In the text, I refer to the Polish climate camp as *Obóz dla Klimatu,* and to the Czech one as *Klimakemp*.

#### Methodological Approach

This chapter is based on ethnography and participant observation. My participation in climate camps varied in terms of time and intensity, from being involved in the long-term preparation of the event, to participation in the event only. I understand my research approach as a 'militant' one (Russell, 2015; Urla and Helepololei, 2014), where I consider myself part of the political struggle, reflecting autoethnographic moments and co-producing knowledge together with research partners. Militant research might be criticised as failing on objectivity, due to ready bias on behalf of the preferences and political allegiances of the researcher. However, no research is produced in an apolitical vacuum. The pretense of objectivity in research might therefore reproduce and reinforce unjust status quos. Militant research may also fall short if it does not provide a salient critique of the movement it studies, even though it might create valuable knowledge for the movement (Halvorsen, 2015). Militancy could provide a novel point of view from within the movement, to help understand and position why anti-coal resistance matters for the wider climate justice movement. During this research I have conducted informal and semi-structured interviews, and I have also participated in the production of media outcomes created by the movement (Müller and Morton, 2018).

This chapter is a comparative inquiry as I focus on four events: climate camps organised in two consecutive years in two localities of lignite extraction. Gingrich and Fox (2002) emphasise the importance of an engaged approach in comparative anthropology that reflects power relations and personal trajectories. Comparative inquiry is based on engaged anthropological research in the vein of the classical environmental slogan "think global, act local" (Peacock, 2002). I also understand it as related to Giri's (2006) call for ontological epistemology, where multi-sited fieldwork is important for a comparative effort that acknowledges partial connections rather than amplifying wholesale systemic differences.

Environmental and climate justice scholarship is sometimes criticised for being too connected to the movement and particular case studies. For example, Jenkins (2018) sees climate justice as an all-encompassing and incoherent framework to be sufficiently translated to legislative procedures and mechanisms and thus not effectively delivering justice to affected social groups. In the following section, I focus on events where climate justice is formed as the political subject on the ground, where actions transgress resistance beyond geographic location and across scales. To conduct resistance against lignite mining includes political meaning and is part of "social processes, through which people make sense of their world" (Simmons and Smith, 2017). I follow the work of Carl Death (2010) on counter-conduct; that is, the moments of interaction with various layers of state power through which contentious subjectivity emerges. It is not only material and historical conditions that shape contentious interactions, and emotions also constitute the performativity of these actions (Houston and Pulido, 2002; Juris, 2008). In other words, acts of resistance matter for participants too. Contentious activities have a profound importance for a collective identity as it creates space for the cooperation of various social groups, where cooperation would have been hardly imaginable in earlier times (Polletta and Jasper, 2001).

#### Defying the Power around Lignite

Resistance to lignite mining was performed and articulated in different ways during protest events. Here I focus on the elements of the resistance that are disruptive to the power that enables and causes lignite mining to endure in an EE context. The existing power structures counter the resistance to lignite mining by deploying precautionary measures as part of a repressive apparatus against participants of climate camps. In turn, climate protests and activities attempt to overcome these silencing measures to disrupt the mining operation and the discourse that justifies it. Participants attempt to respond to the policies and legislation that influence energy metabolism.

#### Undoing the Extremist Label

Before the first climate camp in the Czech Republic in 2017, the Ministry of the Interior listed *Klimakemp* within their report in the section on 'Leftist Extremism'. As a response, the climate justice movement released an open letter addressed to the Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior, where not only the legitimacy of the listing but also the understanding of the term extremism was contested ("Otevřený dopis," 2017). In the open letter, the term 'extremism' was reinterpreted as a means of assuming a 'business-as-usual' approach to fossil fuel extraction. The letter also argued that when participants build and maintain a space for climate justice, they demonstrate that protection of the climate is not a crime, but part of the common, public interest. This counter-conduct to the imposed label of extremism could be seen as part of the creation of the subjectivity of the movement, as the action of the movement showed the fossil fuel industry as the real threat to society, rather than the peaceful protests (Kurik, 2016).

During the protest actions, police used the opportunity granted to them by precautionary measures against activists, to cause inconvenience and spread uncertainty. In 2019, police searched buses carrying protestors to the legally announced and permitted demonstration in Kleczew, checking the technical state of the buses, but also the personal information and identification of the passengers. The material aspects of precautionary and repressive measures also changed. Throughout the route of the demonstration at the Bílina mine in 2018, police accompanied protestors using various kinds of equipment, including horses, quads, a helicopter and other vehicles. Technological and power dominance was a clearly visible part of police conduct, such as when approximately half the protestors, who broke rank *en route* to the mine, were caught within a few metres. Despite their technological dominance, officers acted in a physically aggressive way, notably against a participant who suffered broken ribs, and to whom they did not provide immediate medical help.

Yet the 'precautionary measures' of the repressive apparatus also had protective consequences for the movement. The presence of the police hindered the threat of direct physical violence by opposition groups, which in the case of Poland were associated with the Facebook page *Odkrywkowo*. After the action, *Odkrywkowo* posted an acknowledgement of police work. On the one hand, they lamented the use of batons and tear gas against protestors, while, on the other, the post ended with the implication that without police presence, the protest could have ended up as a violent confrontation between miners and participants of the protest: "If there would be an open confrontation with miners—green extremists would collect financial contributions for other purposes…" implying the need to cover medical expenses for those beaten.

The above-mentioned preventative and repressive measures show a part of what it takes to preserve the operations of lignite infrastructure. The costs of social resistance to mining operations can also be expressed financially, as for instance when the mining company *Severočeské doly* claimed an economic loss of more than 660,000 CZK (approximately €25,800) against several dozen activists. Economic loss calculations reflect how the mining company values mining operations, but also show the costs that direct action can cause. One of the central slogans of the movement— "We are the investment risk"—is financially expressed by the mining company and the claim could be perceived as an attempt to externalise the burden on the participants of the resistance. However, at the same time, the claim has become one of the mobilising arguments for the movement. The action of the movement has caused economic loss to what was perceived by protesters as illegitimate extractive activity, and thus sought to make less profitable. At the same time, the movement provided solidarity and support to prosecuted participants, which also served to attract new participants, who may have been scared of the costs and consequences of future actions.

#### Contesting Coal Politics: Protests as Reaction to Decision-Making

To question certain procedures publicly also highlights the disenfranchisement and lack of meaningful opportunities for participation in the extant procedures of ostensibly 'democratic' government. When, in 2015, the Czech government renegotiated a key resolution known as 'limits to lignite mining', the most extractive scenario incorporated the need to demolish the city of Horní Jiřetín (Lehotský and Černík, 2019). Nation-wide public mobilisation against this emerged around the slogan "*Limity jsme my*"—"we are the limits". The slogan expressed a willingness to put protestors' own bodies in the place of insufficient governmental considerations. While governmental renegotiation of the position of 'limits' resulted in a victory for Horní Jiřetín, limits were still breached at a different open-cast mine, Bílina. Two years after the renegotiation, the slogan transferred to the movement that organised the first *Klimakemp* at the saved Horní Jiřetín. The camp questioned the broader consequences of lignite mining that were not appropriately taken into account during the renegotiation, particularly the mine's contributions to climate change.

The first *Obóz dla Klimatu* was organised in summer 2018, half a year before Poland hosted the UNFCCC's Conference of the Parties in Katowice. Polish dependency on coal was in the international spotlight and people resisting domestic lignite mining highlighted their cases amidst large international protests, notably the *March for Climate*. These resistances ruptured the image of Poland that its President Andrzej Duda had tried to claim (Berendt, 2018). The following summer, in 2019, the protest gained greater legitimacy as an EU infringement procedure was raised against Poland for continued mining operations at the Tomislawice mine. According to the European Commission, this mine was working without a valid hydrological permit ("Fundacja RT-ON— Komisja Europejska: odkrywka Tomisławice narusza prawo," n.d.). Protests during the second *Obóz dla Klimatu* attempted to block mining operations directly, when neither regional nor national authorities acted against the mine despite its infringement of legal requirements.

#### Building Counter-Hegemonic Imaginaries

In the previous section, we have seen how protests created ruptures in the power networks that sustain lignite extraction. However, the resistance also creates ground for new demands. Protests connect various actors and open up possibilities for their future cooperation and for the building of alternatives. In this section, I will provide examples of the construction of counter-hegemonic alternatives during protest. First, this relates to internationalisation, whereby symbolic means and tangible acts connect local struggles against lignite mining with the global climate justice movement. Second, I will focus on the acts connecting previous struggles at the sites with the emerging climate justice movement. Finally, I elaborate on moments in which various contemporary social and emancipatory struggles have converged with the ecological.

#### Internationalisation

Climate camps appropriate internationally recognised symbolic and visual instruments from the global climate justice movement and translate them into a local context. During the *Klimakemp* in 2017, participants formed a red line, joining hands in a human chain at the edge of the Czechoslovak Army Mine with a red line sprayed along the sleeves of their white overalls. Chanting "*Limity jsme my*", the human red line embodied a governmental resolution. A red line was also formed during "picketing"—showing statements on banners and pickets—on the first *Obóz dla Klimatu,* serving as an object for cameras and media images, with the Patnow powerplant in the background. The year after, another red line served as a meeting point for all previously separated action groups as participants met again in the park in Krzyszkowice, where they started to spread alongside the road on the edge of the Tomislawice mine, going through demolished parts of the village. The large red ribbon stretched several hundred metres, connecting groups of participants previously separated by different action levels (those engaged in civil disobedient action and those who were not).

Similar to the red line, white overalls became a symbol of the climate justice movement in Europe, notably in Ende Gelände actions in Germany (Sander, 2017). They contrast with black bloc tactics, bearing a different meaning and historical legacy of non-violence (Juris, 2008). In these civil disobedient actions, white overalls created a collective body, as individuals were hardly distinguishable from each other in the crowd. Along with respiratory masks, white overalls provide protection from dusty environments, but also make it harder for police to act against the uniformed crowd and to identify each participant.

International participants are directly involved in activities at all climate camps. At *Obóz dla Klimatu* in 2018, anti-coal activists from Colombia shared their very different experiences of struggles: first in a workshop, and then, during the protest, one of the activists became a spokesperson to the media. When replying to a TV reporter's question about why she does not protest at home, she articulated the protest as part of the struggle for Mother Earth ("*Protest ekologów przed konińską elektrownią,*" n.d.). The slogan, which translates as "Enough compromises in the protection of Mother Earth", provides a counterpoint to the nationalist discourse on energy security based on domestic lignite production and expands the notion of citizenship—not only citizens or locals become seen as having the right to intervene in the domestic regime of extraction.

Climate camps also provide opportunity and inspiration to develop the struggle. The idea of organising a climate camp in Poland was raised during the first climate camp in the Czech Republic. As one participant describes it: "I was in *Limity* in the Czech Republic last year, with two other Polish people who are also in the organisation group. We were sitting, drinking beers and thinking: Hey, let's do something like this in Poland next year," (personal interview, 2018). This is what Tormos‐ Aponte and García‐López (2018) describe as mutual learning in the movement, bringing recognition of the struggle to other localities.

#### Building on Previous Struggles

If we understand the building of international connections as horizontal, with relations to the history of previous and future resistance forms as interconnected, then there may also exist vertical connections located in particular places. In both regions, across Poland and the Czech Republic, a history of struggle against lignite mining exists, notably conducted by local inhabitants against its direct effects. Climate camps enable people who are also affected by other aspects of lignite mining to find common ground within this heritage.

By 2015, there were various forms of resistance ranging from referenda to a tractor blockade against the plans of the mining company, ZE-PAK, to expand open cast mining in the region. Protests highlighted the exploitative nature of the enterprise, often personified by the owner of the company, Zygmunt Solorz-Zak. Pickets, banners and slogans addressed to the owner, such as "Mr. Zygmunt, not on our land" also appeared at the climate camp. Although not all the participants and organisers of the previous protests attended the climate camp in person, some of the representatives of the initiatives joined climate camps and held speeches during protests at *Obóz dla Klimatu*.

During the 2019 *Klimakemp*, connections to previous struggles were made directly during the protests. On the march, for instance, protestors walked through Libkovice, the last village demolished because of lignite mining in 1993. At that time, civil disobedience blockades attempted to stop the demolition and the actions were some of the first by the emerging environmental movement in the Czech Republic. Participants of the original blockade also joined the march in 2019 and spoke about their experiences at the spot where the first round of speeches had taken place. Through such moments, the resistance of the past was felt in the present, commemorating the history of the environmental movement and resistance against coal mining in the country.

#### Convergence Nodes of Emancipatory Struggles

Apart from historical and regional struggles, current social resistance also creates conditions in which climate justice movements emerge. Connections between various emancipatory struggles form an imaginary of viable alternatives to the injustice connected with lignite mining. The emerging climate justice movement in Poland was founded from the very beginning on delicately balanced cooperation between various groups, including local farmers, anarchist groups and NGOs. *Obóz dla Klimatu* in 2018 set a goal to create a safe space, a laboratory where different groups of people can meet in a respectful atmosphere to create an easily accessible entrance point into the movement for new participants and, to that end, refrained from civil disobedient action.

During the protests at *Klimakemp* and *Obóz dla Klimatu* significant solidarity was expressed with workers of the lignite mining companies. Protesters brought their translation of the just transition, which was originally a unionist concept (Stevis and Felli, 2015). The expression of solidarity with workers was evident through slogans in the protests, such as "*in solidarity with workers, but never with open-pit mines*", or "*four-day working week*" as a rather desirable, one-sided plea. Employees or union members of the mining companies did not participate in the debates organised during the camp's programme, despite their invitation. After the first *Obóz dla Klimatu*, the concept of just transition was contested by *Inicjatyva Pracownicza*, an independent unionist magazine in Poland (Urbanski, 2018). Both *Obóz dla Klimatu* and *Klimakemp* attempted to discuss democratisation of the energy sector. Common ground for an imaginary beyond coal mining, that included both workers of the mining industry and the climate justice movement, remained elusive both inside and outside of climate camps. Currently both regions are involved in the EU Platform for Coal Regions in Transition and it is questionable whether this platform will provide an opportunity to move beyond an approach to just transition based on a 'green economy'.

Critique of green growth or market-based solutions is contentious in the environmental movements of post-communist countries, where liberal environmentalism has been prevalent (Jehlička et al., 2005; Novák, 2015). However, groups identifying themselves as anti-capitalist also participate at climate camps. The Polish slogan "People first, profits later", or the front banner at the *Klimakemp* 2018 saying "Don't change the climate, change ourselves. End coal", emphasise the importance of systemic critiques articulated during protests. Rather than silencing anti-capitalist voices, careful translations of the overarching central slogan of the climate justice movement—"System Change, Not Climate Change"—situate the systemic critique and vocabulary of these movements in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Various voices are present in climate justice resistance in the regions of lignite extraction, some of which might not be perceived as directly connected to the issue of lignite mining and climate change. After their return from the protest to the 2019 camp at *Obóz dla Klimatu*, participants learned about violent attacks on the Bialystok LGBT Pride March. Shocked and shaken, participants immediately organised a solidarity group picture, taking a clear stand for the value of diversity—a controversial topic in contemporary Poland. Such tangible acts of intermovement spill-over serve to broaden the realm of justice (Hadden, 2014).

#### Conclusion

Climate camps in the Czech Republic and Poland have politicised the dependency of both states on coal and the extraction of lignite. Through resistance, the area of extraction becomes a place of contestation, but also becomes connected and intertwined with the global scale of the

Fig. 2. Group picture at Obóz dla Klimatu in solidarity with Pride in Bialystok. Earlier that day, on 20 July 2019, the Pride march was violently attacked. Photograph courtesy of Ewa Bielańczyk-Obst (2019).

climate crisis. Resistance is not a monolithic activity—each event is situated in specific conditions that make it significant. In this chapter, I have identified two aspects of the resistance: disruptive and constructive. I have looked at certain moments that made resistance significant for the participants, but also for the opponents of the climate justice movement.

The disruptive force of resistance is evident in the precautionary and repressive measures deployed against the protestors before, during, and after climate camps. From discursive efforts, such as framing the resistance as extremist, to the technological dominance of police during the protests, or the calculation of the economic loss caused by the protests—all of these tactics demonstrate a concerted effort to contain the disruption caused by the resistance. Such resistance is also situated within the political and legislative context that influences lignite mining. Protestors politicised specific government resolutions in the case of lignite mining limits in the North Bohemian Coal Basin and the infringement of water permits in the Tomislawice mine, in Poland, or disrupted the national discourse of energy security based on domestic coal production.

Climate camps in Poland and the Czech Republic are also examples of constructive resistance. In these camps local cases are symbolically bound to the global and international context, with visual means of sharing amongst members of the global climate justice movement being deployed. Climate camps are open to international participation and thus expand energy citizenship beyond the nation-state. The camps also acknowledge and build on previous struggles, introducing knowledge about the previous protests to new participants and expanding their awareness of contemporary issues of climate justice. The resistance at climate camps also broadens the realm of justice, which might not be perceived as directly related to coal mining or climate change. It opens up debates about the democratic imaginaries of nature-society relationships within the movement, for example by contesting the meaning of any singular 'just transition'.

Although we can understand climate camps in both countries as events of the same global climate justice movement, in this chapter I have also interrogated important differences in the translation of tactics and organisation of camps to their respective contexts. The movement reacts to broader social problems to challenge hegemonic power. Probably the most notable difference between the Czech and Polish cases emerged in Poland, where climate resistance was extended to encompass support for the LGBT Pride march in Bialystok. This was in response to violent threats from those opposing the messages of the climate camp. Such broad social- and identity-entanglements have not as yet been a characteristic of the Czech environmental resistance context.

Climate camps in both Konin and the North Bohemian Coal Basin create a leverage point that pushes for an earlier coal phase-out in their respective states, both of which are considered part of the coal heartland of the EU. These events matter to participants as they empower them to participate meaningfully in shaping society's energy metabolism by intervening in the dynamics of lignite mining. This resistance to lignite mining at climate camps seeks to rupture a socio-technological imaginary based on coal dependency. It also sparks a debate about broader socioecological transformations, politicising the issue of justice, and opening up new possibilities of a post-carbon future. More than a decade after the first climate camp in Britain, *Klimakemp* and *Obóz dla Klimatu* show how this way of organising has travelled and expanded to new regions and has been adjusted to EE contexts.

#### References

## 4. Gaps of Warsaw: Urban Environmentalism through Green Interstices

## *Jana Hrckova*

When Warsovians are asked to reflect on their city, they eventually steer the conversation towards the phenomenon that I call urban gaps. As Joanna Kusiak contends within the opening pages of *Chasing Warsaw* (Kusiak, 2005), the city is marked by many small and large open spaces with an interstitial character that are seemingly 'left-over' and derelict. This is a result of a combination of the planned and the unplanned, as Warsaw has a scattered structure of buildings stemming from modernist planning and the after-effects of the destruction wrought by WWII, as well as more contemporary development. As an illustration, the reader can imagine terrains that span from halted construction lots and squares turned into improvised parking lots, through to meadows and poorly kept lawns by the roadside, to dilapidated socialist sport complexes. As many of these hard-to-define areas bustle with vagabond greenery and can still be found in the very centre of the city, both the municipal government and developers often have their eyes on them as sites of lucrative future urban development.

Looking at these green spaces through an ethnographic lens, this chapter analyses shifts in urban policies that have led from formal stakeholders trying to undermine the social life in such areas, towards considering the ways in which these areas are today providing openings for a re-evaluation of the city and their role within it through environmental considerations. The chapter begins with an exploration of city hall policies as well as the prevalent imaginaries of neoliberal

Fig. 1. Empty area in Mokotow district in the vicinity of a housing estate about to be developed. Photograph by the author (2017).

spatial order and urban life, which have paradoxically often led to both the production and disappearance of the gaps, as well as to their dormant character. The analysis links such processes with norms associated with the fetishisation of private property in post-socialist countries (Hann, 2005). Sonia Hirt (2012) once called this phenomenon a condition of privatism, signalled by a disintegration of public spaces and a belief that the private realm ensures a thriving society. Besides the centrality of private property, the chapter focuses on both physical and metaphorical 'clean ups' within urban space that have been facilitated by the city hall, which have made the existence of these 'unruly' green gaps in the city undesirable.

On the other hand, zooming in on a contrarian approach to these gaps, the text also highlights the often unforeseen social value held by the urban interstices in Warsaw and their unique liminal condition in urban space (Berger, 2006: 31). Using an example of the Jazdow initiative as one such rebellious 'gap' in the city's very centre, the chapter examines the dynamic changes of the discourses of the municipal government in post-Global Financial Crisis (GFC) Warsaw and explores how the shifting official imaginaries as they relate to environmentalism and value have been used to 'save' some of these spaces. Seizing the re-opened possibilities of city hall policy through the creative city paradigm, the activists at Jazdow subversively employed the official language of participation and public space 'activation' to keep the area open for alternative social experimentation.

 Urban activation thus perfectly fits with newly embraced 'creative city' approaches, influenced by the now infamous works of urban consultants Richard Florida (2005) and Charles Landry (2000). Creative city development preaches that cultural resources and the symbolic content of urban economies ought to be harnessed, and "local peculiarities" for economic development appropriated (Novy and Colomb, 2013: 1821). The recent emergence of environmental concerns has also been used as a way to articulate urban struggles, to link up localised issues with national and global ones. While urban agendas are often perceived as confined to a specific place, embedding the conflict within transnational environmental activism has provided a boost in legitimacy as well as equipping activists with new tools in their work.1 For example, the air pollution crisis that has resonated amongst the local population in Warsaw has allowed for a re-evaluation of what urban 'gaps' represent and could be as an inherent part of the urban realm, possibly putting an end to authorities and developers seeing them as black holes in the city.

A leftist, Warsaw-based publisher that I talked to about what I perceived as a lack of social life in the urban interstices of Warsaw exclaimed that "Warsaw is no Barcelona!" Visibly surprised by my problematising and questioning the processes that might be behind a 'no Barcelona' vibe, she continued: "People in Warsaw always make their own rules. When the need arises, they will figure something out." I therefore hope that the chapter will reveal that 'figuring something out'

<sup>1</sup> See for example Timothy Choy's (2011) discussion on the centrality of striking the right balance between local and international expertise in environmental struggles in Hong Kong.

in relation to the green interstices and formulating possible alternatives for their future has already begun.

This chapter draws on ethnographic fieldwork that took place between 2015 and 2018. I conducted a series of semi-structured interviews with stakeholders ranging from activists at Jazdow to members of other urban movements, officials and academics. Further data was acquired from participant observation at Jazdow and in various other gaps as well as a qualitative analysis of policy and media outputs. During my fieldwork, I was an active member of a community gardening group at Jazdow.

Fig. 2. Jazdow community garden. Photograph by the author (2018).

### The Social Life of 'Gaps'

I have derived the 'gaps' concept from the emic way in which Warsaw urban interstices are discussed amongst people: these places are often referred to as empty or desolate. In this chapter, such gaps will be used as an umbrella term for the informal, interstitial spaces that often remain from wartime destruction or poor planning, spaces that either lie derelict or are not used for the purposes for which they were designed.

In eastern Europe (EE), and in Warsaw in particular, the urban interstices have a special significance due to particular histories of destruction and consequent waves of (sometimes unfinished) re-builds and constructions that have contributed towards the spatial organisation of the city. If these gaps appear at all in the literature, they are identified as being the result of post-industrial economies giving rise to abandoned factories in the inner cities (Edensor, 2005) or of urban sprawl (Sievert's *Zwischenstadt* concept, 2001). In Warsaw such spaces have been present since the destruction of WWII (when approximately 84% of the city was destroyed) and perpetuated by the numerous, often unfinished construction projects that took place on the outskirts. Zydek (2014: 76) points out that "Warsaw's emptiness has often had a planned character," as the city outline included monumental open spaces that have been hard to maintain, and often originally served predominantly ideological goals, such as the huge Defilad Square in the city centre that hosted regular parades. The urban development of the city was fully controlled by planners, as in 1945, 93% of land in the capital was nationalised by the so-called Beirut Decree (Kusiak, 2012: 303). The move provided the communist party with a free hand in deciding spatial development, stripping the land of its commercial value and opening possibilities for an airy, modernist development that extended beyond the city centre.

The disintegration of the socialist regimes ushered in further 'gaps' that appeared during the 1990s together with the destruction of public facilities and infrastructure, and sprawling suburbanisation. Urban interstices must be placed in the context of the post-socialist reality and "actually existing neoliberalism" (Brenner and Theodore, 2002) that swept through the whole EE region from the 1990s. The processes that neoliberal governance unleashed led to an interesting paradox. While the urban interstices started disappearing quickly during the late 2000s, as they filled up with new constructions, others paradoxically sprang up in spaces where busy urban life used to take place. These new spaces arose due to failing public infrastructure and ownership irregularities. The fuzziness of actual ownership and the messy land restitution process contributed to the production of these new gaps. As Murawski (2018: 28) shows, fuzzy property issues in Warsaw have been severely detrimental for ordinary inhabitants,2 as they have led to the further exploitation of the already dispossessed while the wealthy and corrupt have benefited from this fuzziness by being able to manipulate ownership restitution titles and processes in their favour.

Scholars of political ecology have demonstrated the stark economic and developmental unevenness that can be found in urban landscapes (Heynen, 2014); in Warsaw such unevenness can be traced in the natural and social lives of gaps as well as in the gaps that no longer exist. Interstitial spaces are thus today infused with meaning stemming from such histories, serving as some of the most important sources of contemporary traces of the pre-war, socialist, but also recent capitalist past, through which unique ecologies are produced. Despite often being framed in moral dimensions of waste and decay, remaining urban gaps have been perceived to stand out by authorities and developers from value-producing structures of the city (De-Sola Morales, 1995: 120). They can be researched as a mitigating border zone, presenting limits to the omnipresent commodification of space, as well as acting as a last refuge and potential for alternative uses. They can be seen as places that are not "stage-managed for tourism or consumption" (Gandy, 2009: 152), or as places with ruderal ecologies where unexpected human and non-human neighbours can come together.

Upon entering my field, and influenced by the existing literature on gaps, vague and left-over spaces, I assumed that I was to find such spaces filled with all sorts of social life that had been squeezed out of the mainstream and increasingly uneven Warsaw (Berger, 2006: 31; Saksouk-Sasso, 2013; Anderson, 2015; Tonnelat, 2008). I expected to find tiny markets there; I expected to find people, who used these spaces as restrooms, meeting places, spots to take their dog out or sell crack, as sleepover areas, sites for game scenarios for kids or hipster hangouts, the world of the subaltern and the world that exists beyond the rules of the profit-oriented capitalist city. To my great surprise, however, I found that not much was happening in these so-called 'gaps', in a social sense. In general, informants agreed with this observation, but the range of

<sup>2</sup> As opposed to Verdery's description of fuzzy property in Romania (1998: 179), which sometimes allowed people to manipulate and navigate new sets of rules and relations to their favour.

their interpretations has been a challenge to process. Some attributed the lack of social action to cold weather during the first months of my research in late autumn 2016. One man I talked to even suggested that the oft-unemployed working class whom he met while hanging out in such spaces simply "moved to England" after accession to the EU.

I believe that underlying causes of such dormancy could be clearly identified in the largely unchallenged mode of neoliberal governance that has functioned in the city for almost two decades. After the shock therapy reforms in the early 1990s and a subsequent economic slump that aided the creation of many of the gaps in the city, it was the 2000s that brought in a new wave of financialised corporate capital. Poblocki suggests that this was the time when earlier Polish "car boot sale" capitalism swiftly changed, accompanied by a construction boom (Poblocki, 2012: 272). The scale of development led to more stringent execution of property rights, making it more difficult to appropriate spaces with known owners. It is also vital to understand the inherent desire of the municipality and some of the inhabitants at this time to show that Poland was a 'normal'3 country, and to mimic the perceived ways of being Western and modern.

'Hoping for normal' in this sense can be linked to the ideology of post-socialist transition that understands the changes in the 1990s as a trajectory of catching up, moving back (or forward) towards democracy, capitalism and civilisation (Stenning and Hörschelmann, 2008: 321). Unsurprisingly, the prevalent imaginary of the desired spirit of Warsaw4 mirrored the capitalist ideals of the late 2000s and 2010s, attempting to model the city as a sterile safe haven for capital as well as for the upper classes. In the case of the gaps, the 'normal' stands for a well-landscaped and maintained city, where the shabbiness of both the urban space and its inhabitants would be relegated to the socialist past, to showcase the 'winners' in the new economy.

<sup>3</sup> The term often used among my informants when describing their desires and ideas about the future or notions of a 'good life'. Similar use of the term 'normal' in post-socialist urban space has been recorded by Fehervary (2002), who wrote about how conspicuous consumption in the households in Dunaujvaros would be interpreted as returning to the wished-for normal; or Jansen (2015), who described the yearning of the Sarajevans for a working and predictable state.

<sup>4</sup> A nod to Bell and Shalit's *Spirit of Cities* (2014).

In the late 2000s, the city hall unleashed a process of what could be called a 'beautification' of Warsaw. This meant not only making the city cleaner of trash and 'unkept' greenery, but also cleaning its public spaces of unwanted individuals. The ban on public drinking that has been in place since the 1980s curfew became more strictly policed. Similarly, small illegal market stalls were targeted and many legal ones had their permits removed. A friend made a comment that Warsaw from this time had the 'clean' aura that cities have under authoritarian rule—a cleanliness that is heavily enforced. The inspiration for such measures could be traced to Rudi Giuliani's infamous clean-up of the streets of New York and his introduction of 'broken window theory', which eventually became a playbook for mayors around the world wishing to market their "world class cities" (Schindler, 2014). An urban renaissance desired by some resulted in the displacement and harassment of others, and Warsaw was no different.

The often-dormant character of the gaps can also be attributed to a widespread post-socialist emphasis on the centrality of private property in everyday life and as an integral part of society (Hann, 2005: 550). Linking to the aforementioned fuzzy property issues in Warsaw, it is important to understand the double-edged consequences of the fetishisation of private property—on the one hand, it led to the emergence of gaps, as the rights and titles to lots in the city were often unclear, such that formal development was kept at bay, while at the same time, such uncertainty prevented social life within them, as such areas became fervently policed and thus untouchable by anyone save the (often unknown) owners.

The resulting relative abandonment of the gaps gave rise to a very convenient situation for real estate developers, aided by the city hall, who depicted many of the gaps as useless, dangerous and ugly, as areas with shrubbery standing in the way of the much desired 'densification' and a more compact city.5 Warsaw has an unusually diffuse built structure, causing problems with the provision of public facilities and public transport and effectively enhancing car usage amongst some inhabitants. However, the quest for urban density has been used to justify

<sup>5</sup> There have been numerous events (e.g. the Dense City conference held in January 2017 and the Dense City Workshop in February and March 2017) hosted by the city hall to discuss the options for further construction on unused urban terrain.

all kinds of projects, often destroying green spaces without responding to the above-mentioned challenges.6 The approach has led to decades of "wild development," as inhabitants derogatively describe it, enabled by a virtual lack of binding planning processes in Warsaw, which has turned the city into a developers' playground. As an illustration, the number of new developments in 2008 was equal to all new constructions in London in the same year, a city four times the size of Warsaw (Kusiak, 2012: 302). While such a scenario was to be expected on privately-owned lots, the construction and privatisation fever has also frequently affected publicly-owned land. In the following sections, I will explore a strategy of resistance employed by the urban activists devoted to preserving one such publicly-owned space.

#### Gap Struggles

Here, I zoom in on Jazdow as one of the few cases where urban gaps have been preserved from real-estate development (at least for the moment) through the concerted action of local activists and inhabitants. I use this case to explore how urban imaginaries of city hall authorities were 'opened up' and redefined, where desired forms of urbanity could become a manoeuvring space for the advocates of the preservation of Jazdow.

The Jazdow settlement has an intriguing history: it arose in the very centre of the city as almost one hundred small wooden houses that were sent to Poland by the Finnish government as part of WWII reparations. The area is today approximately 5 hectares and full of lush greenery. The houses are municipally owned and were conceived as a temporary solution amidst the post-war housing shortage. Out of the original ninety houses, about twenty-six still stood during my research in 2017. Some of them were empty, some hosted the remaining twenty-five permanent inhabitants (as the city stopped allotting the houses and the former inhabitants left or died) and some were occupied by various NGOs and

<sup>6</sup> There are numerous examples of questionable development: for example an (ongoing) attempt to start construction in the middle of the Bemowo Forest at a lot between two conservation areas. Similarly, an environmentally diverse area popular among Warsovians around Czerniakowski Lake has been picked for future development.

activists. The settlement has undergone a slow dismantling ever since the 1970s, however it took until around 2010 for the district authorities to proceed towards a complete clearing out of the area. The district mayor (representing the centre-liberal party that, in 2020, still governs city hall) argued that having a 'village' in the city centre is a shame, as the area was way too valuable to host overgrown shrubbery and a few shabby houses. The area truly lies within the most exclusive zones in the city, both in terms of prestige and land prices. The Polish Parliament is on the opposite side of the road from the settlement. The unique position of the settlement is regularly highlighted during bigger protests, as the police often use the streets around Jazdow to park their radio cars.

As state power and money coalesce here, it was not surprising that the mayor's vision of 'acceptable' functions claimed to be 'more adequate' for the area included a new Japanese embassy and a shopping mall. This process interestingly coalesces with other well-described gentrification-like cases in the EE region through 'urban renewal' and 'urban revitalisation' practices, with strong state or municipal presence acting as a catalyst for the changes (Drozda, 2017; Jelinek, 2020; Pastak and Kahrik, 2016). Another peculiarity of Warsaw and many other cities in the region is that 'gentrification' processes occur in sync with shifts in property regimes, either on formerly public land or due to ownership changes and restitutions (often filled with irregularities).

Around this time, a group of citizens and Jazdow inhabitants started to organise to defend the area from development, forming an 'Open Jazdow' initiative. The goal of the activists was to preserve the living space for the few remaining inhabitants and to keep the area open for everyone, together with its wild character, without overt landscaping or hierarchical organisation, much in line with the Lefebvrian 'right to the city'. In this manner, the area would continue to serve as a counterpoint to the nearby baroque park with sterile and meticulous up-keep and set visiting hours.

What played into the activists' hands was the silent change that took place at the city hall. The liberal administration that had been in power for twenty years with only a minor break saw its approval rate plummet, especially after a far-reaching scandal connected to the restitution of public spaces and housing in the city. Additionally, within Poland, Warsaw city hall was one of the last strongholds of the once powerful liberal party that had enjoyed only very limited power on a national level, as national politics were dominated by the social-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) Party.

The shaky position that the administration found itself in was echoed in their inclination towards experimentation with policy. As Brenner and Theodore (2002: 28) remind us, cities have become absolutely central for policy experiments and new politico-ideological projects designed to deliver changes that in reality allow 'business as usual' to continue. While the earlier rule of the liberal party could be described as full-throttle neoliberalism, it soon became obvious that the revanchist approach (Smith, 1996) of aggressively uneven and exclusionary urban governing had met its limits. In addition, the GFC7 slowed down the influx of investment, forcing the city hall to limit its spending. The city hall found the solution to this conundrum in the creative city paradigm, which the city hall hesitantly adopted (see Florida, 2005). As several researchers have shown, after the recession, the desire for relatively cheap 'quick fixes' across cities increased, leading to a boom in officiallysanctioned, so-called tactical urbanism (Mould, 2014) and 'creative' approaches (Pratt and Hutton, 2013).

Fig. 3. The green space of Jazdow. Photograph by the author (2018).

<sup>7</sup> Poland weathered the financial crisis rather well, but it could nevertheless be felt due to slowed-down investment.

Based on the communications and the new projects of the city hall, as well as their hiring choices, it became clear that the city realised that to perpetuate the image of Warsaw as a cool and modern global city, they would need a few 'alternative'-looking areas, with people riding bicycles and at least a simulacrum of 'authentic' urban experiences;8 delivering the urban lifestyles to attract the middle- and upper-class inhabitants following developments in other global cities. For example, Colomb (2012) has analysed policy shifts in urban governance in Berlin, a city that acts as one of the main sources of inspiration in Poland due to perceived geographical and cultural similarities, and even includes a discussion on the city's use of the urban 'voids' in urban development and marketing of space. Similar tendencies of rebalancing neoliberal development have been described in other cities around the world, e.g. in an article on urban development in Moscow by Zupan and Budenbender (2019) as "hipster Stalinism", a way of rejuvenating and greening space physically, without any attempt to address deeper undemocratic rules or strategies inherent to the processes of urban development politics and planning.

To keep up with the "global economy of appearances" (Tsing, 2000), several well-known urban experts and activists were hired by the Warsaw city hall. The newly hired consultants perpetuated the creative language following western European urbanist tendencies (and the new head architect gave a Powerpoint presentation called '*Copenhagenize Warsaw'*), although it is questionable whether they enjoyed any reasonable influence to push through their more radical propositions. Generally, the whole story echoed a familiar scenario of the counter-culture representatives in the urban realm being coopted by capital-backed political representation and thus effectively silenced (Frank, 1997). At the same time, however, it was undeniable that the desired mode of urbanity shifted and provided a degree of fluidity that led to the Jazdow initiative's success.

Tapping into the tendencies in the city council, the protest against demolishing Jazdow immediately took the form of 'community activation'. Besides the more conventional forms of struggle, the activists organised concerts, picnics, workshops, and started a community

<sup>8</sup> As suggested by one of my informants, a young female architect.

garden in order to present the space as a valuable gathering spot for the community. At the same time, they employed the language that echoed the 'creative city paradigm' and suggested that Jazdow could be an urban laboratory of a kind. Some of the otherwise rather radical positions remained strategically under-communicated9 while the activities that fitted well with the city hall agenda were highlighted. The Open Jazdow group also made sure that they had a professional and very neat-looking visual representation of their plans and attempted to include 'respectable' organisations and experts10 in their propositions.

There is a significant corpus of academic literature that shows how the creative city discourse often serves as a way to introduce and justify gentrification in impoverished areas (McLean, 2017: 41–42; Pratt, 2009; Zukin, 1995). According to this line of reasoning, public activation, artistic interventions or community gardening herald the upcoming 'clean-up' of neighbourhoods that turns them into a desirable destination for capital. The irony in the case of Jazdow is that these dynamics have curiously worked the other way around—as a safeguard against being pulled into a pre-existing government-business district with its sterile, elitist space. The discourse that the activists more or less willingly coopted thus acted as a functioning buffer that succeeded in persuading the city *against* development. It also ensured that the area could be kept messy and open, and created space for more radical experiments that would otherwise never take place.

#### Warsaw: The Green Capital?

Besides the space activation and creative city discourse, 'gap activism' has acquired a new tool, as Warsaw has seen a sudden and somewhat surprising turn towards environmental issues. The spike was signified by an air pollution crisis that has been alarming for decades, but for various reasons only truly became a household concern during the

<sup>9</sup> An example of this was the pilot micro-housing initiative for the homeless or some of the commoning experiments.

<sup>10</sup> For example, at the moment some of the houses are occupied by well-established NGOs. One provides support for migrants, another works in education, and there is a group of young architects. At the same time people who presented themselves as experts on urban topics, urban ecology and more have been involved in order to gain a respectable and favourable negotiating ground.

winter of 2016–2017. One environmental activist described his feelings about the sudden buzz around his work by likening his organisation to a rock band that had been confined to their garage for years before getting 'discovered'. Throughout the winters, EU norms on air pollution were exceeded almost every day. In January 2017, for one day, Warsaw even topped the global air pollution statistics. Linking this to the aforementioned attempts to mimic the West, it could be argued that the January smog was a breaking point. Newspapers printed titles suggesting that Warsaw was worse than Beijing, to emphasise a cultural horror about being so far from desired western standards and core.

Amidst barely existent industrial pollution in the capital region, the culprits were found to emanate from two of Poland's greatest loves: cars and coal. Leading up to this period, between 2009 and 2014, approximately 147,000 trees were cut from within Warsaw, often with justification and reference to the 'modernisation' of public space in Warsaw ('Urban heat island' report, 2014). However, with the upheaval over pollution, environmental concerns entered the agenda of both inhabitants and municipal governments. In its attempts to search for new branding ideas, the city hall even entered a competition 'Warsaw the green capital of Europe' with reference to the large numbers of parks and "lush green space" in the city (Jakubowski, 2015). Even though the green capital slogan was laughed off by many as a poor attempt at greenwashing, it nevertheless remained in the official municipal communications, with the promotional video being played on public transport and regular announcements by the administration about Warsaw as the "green capital in-the-making" (most recently in a tweet by Mayor Trzaskowski in May 2018). Similar to other cases described by the literature (Rademacher, 2008; Szili and Rofe, 2007), environmental issues made a grand entrance in Warsaw and became focal points for manifesting rifts in state policy-making.

Amid the upheaval that the city simply could not ignore, the Jazdow area as well as other gaps in the city started gaining new salience as spaces of urban reproduction, as the sensibilities of the media as well as inhabitants became more attuned to environmental issues and greenery in various shapes and forms. The arguments at hand for a long time amongst activists suddenly gained power and coverage. The activists were now able to discuss how the vacant lots could vitally contribute towards urban living as well as providing a refuge for vagabond species of plants and animals (Harrison and Davies, 2012; Clement, 2011). They discussed how Jazdow and similar areas mitigated urban heat island issues, and even tapped into urban ecology theorisations and presented these as options to be included in the official city policies, e.g. in the ongoing 'Adapcity' project acting as an umbrella institution for research on resilience and climate change in Warsaw. Ironically, the abovementioned policies that had kept the gaps devoid of social action and allowed for the overgrown greenery to develop contributed to making such spaces even more valuable once urban space was reframed. The pollution crisis revealed the ruderal ecologies of the gaps as vital urban spaces, finally transgressing the dated nature-urbanity duality.

Moreover, the area of Jazdow, as well as many other gaps, underwent a certain metamorphosis of scale. Earlier, Jazdow had been perceived as an isolated issue—today it is viewed as part of a system of Warsovian green corridors. Almost forgotten in the 1990s, Warsaw boasts a system of 'air wedges' filled with unkempt greenery, parks, cemeteries or airports, which have been in place since the war—and which are the reason behind many of the gaps in the city's fabric. As nowadays the corridors are often built over, the topic of their usefulness for air ventilation rose to prominence in relation to the air-pollution crisis. Within a surprisingly short time span, the loss of green wedges was singled out as a symbol of wild capitalism, which should be prevented.11 Jazdow is located at the tip of one of the corridors, linked to the system of public parks that penetrates the city centre.12 Due to this positioning, Jazdow gained an unequivocal boost in the way the legitimacy of its existence was perceived by the Warsovians. As earlier rights-to-thecity approaches became intertwined with pressing environmental

<sup>11</sup> The existence of the corridors has always been included in urban plans, however these were not binding and officials rarely respected them in their building permit decisions.

<sup>12</sup> While the effect of trees and greenery on the urban environment can be scientifically demonstrated, at the time of research nobody in Warsaw seemed able to conclusively comment on whether the green corridors actually work in their main task of circulating fresh air within the city. As one researcher dealing with air pollution told me, the corridors in Warsaw are simply a matter of tradition and "people sort of believe in them." Nevertheless, even without clear evidence, they have become a buzzword, a sort of long-lost panacea to smog invoked by environmentalists and the leftist opposition alike.

grievances, it became difficult to imagine that the city hall would move towards developing the area. Urban greenery in the gaps and elsewhere gained a new political and practical salience that could not be ignored.

\*\*\*

The literature posits depoliticisation or even a post-political agenda of green urban projects (Swyngedouw, 2018). However, at the time of the Jazdow case, the city of Warsaw was still reluctant to embrace the green sustainability paradigm, and environmental struggles had a unique aura of veiled politics, hiding deeply political agendas behind seemingly apolitical issues. By using gaps as a means in urban struggles, an intriguing circle in Polish activism has been drawn: the current situation echoes the activist scene of the 1980s around the EE region. As the 1980s movements realised, environmental activism is a topic through which it continues to be possible to launch systemic critiques of government and policies, by raising seemingly 'apolitical' grievances. In a deeply divided Polish society, the Jazdow initiative has thus attained a unique position from which it has become possible to critique and highlight other far-reaching topics such as the Polish coal industry, automobile fetishism or climate change, and link them to uneven development in the city and beyond.

#### Conclusion

Through gaps and the interstitial areas in the city, I have explored how policy decisions in post-socialist and post-crisis Warsaw have yielded contradictory results. At different points, the imaginary of a global city in the neoliberal era and unique property relations have combined with a modernist urban outline that has ironically led to both the appearance and disappearance of urban gaps. While they have caused a large degree of dormancy within such spaces, they have also provided an opening for city residents to 'reclaim' them.

The Jazdow initiative exemplifies one case study of such struggles towards the preservation and rearticulation of urban gaps in Warsaw. By proposing an alternative approach to gaps, opening them up and highlighting the value of urban greenery, the Jazdow community showed that an eventual reconciliation with the goals of municipal policy-makers was possible. Jazdow achieved this by taking advantage of a policy shift at the city hall that embraced a paradigm of creative city and public 'activation'. By making use of the new approach to urbanism, Jazdow activists essentially found a tool that enabled the preservation of accessible and non-commodified areas within the heart of one of the most exclusionary and securitised neighbourhoods. The recent rise of the environmental agenda has further supported the efforts of the initiative and provided the community with a chance to link their struggle to more systemic issues reaching far beyond Warsaw.

It must be noted that until now, Jazdow activists have been rather shy to use the full potential ushered in by the environmental crisis and to truly jump scales in their work. In *Cognitive Cartography in a European Wasteland*, Gille (2000) described the competing forms of invocations of the desired 'Westernness' in a struggle over a trash processor. In my case, the competing imaginaries of urbanity are only implicit, as one side tactically waits and uses the cracks in the other's discourse. It would be easy to criticise the approach for a lack of radicalism—after all, in order to maximise capital extraction in urban areas, 'weird' and alternative spaces in the city are currently highly sought after by policy-makers. However, after decades of tough policing as well as harmful and unfavourable city hall policies, the strategy could also be described as mimicking the power imbalance between the two sides of the struggle. The activists were manoeuvered into carefully testing their field of possibilities before unleashing action and thus far, this strategy has been rather successful. At the same time, in the near future it will be immensely important to develop the range and scale of topics that the initiative touches on, to continue with a simple territorial expansion to other similar areas in the city and the country—before they disappear, as so many already have before them.

#### References

## PART II

## 5. Far-right Grassroots Environmental Activism in Poland and the Blurry Lines of 'Acceptable' Environmentalisms

*Balsa Lubarda*

More than a decade ago, the rise and subsequent mainstreaming of right-wing populism and far-right politics seemed unimaginable to many. In the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, articulating nationalism as the 'reclaiming of politics' and the panacea to transitional hardships has brought populist (and) far-right parties to major electoral successes. This has allowed a number of far-right actors (not necessarily parties) to engage in various debates, including topics related to the natural environment. This chapter seeks to determine how far-right groups in Poland, *Ecolektyw* (formerly *Greenline Front Polska*) and *Puszczyk-Naturokultura Polska* (also associated with *Praca Polska*) convey their ideological positions concerning the natural environment, as well as how this ideological content becomes embedded in and amended through activism.

The political far right in Poland has evolved with, but also in opposition to, the populist radical right. Following *Fidesz*, their successful role model in Hungary, the Polish Law and Justice Party, *Prawo i Sprawiedliwość* (PiS), used the Manichean, binary logic of the 'good people' and a 'corrupt elite' to sweep away most of their political opponents. Ever since 2005, when PiS first came to power under the banner of a "moral revolution" (Harper, 2018: 29), the party has purposefully tried both to entrench its political power and monopolise historical narratives, asserting its status as the defender of traditional values. In spite of PiS's alleged intention to have "only the wall" to their right (Harper, 2018: 59), the diversified far-right1 landscape in Poland has served predominantly as the opposition to the ruling party, particularly since 2015 when PiS re-entered government. As the farright party opposition to PiS is relatively formally weak (*Ruch Narodowy* with six members of *Sejm* in the Lower House of Parliament integrated in the *Konfederacja* coalition), it devotes its attention to topics that are electorally lucrative, such as migration, EU regulations and questions of collective identity.

However, this is not the case with far-right movements, which regardless of their limited financial resources, have greater space for manoeuvring and engaging with various topics, such as the environment. This not only highlights particular social imaginaries (Castoriadis, 1975) but also bears a substantive and ideological morphology (Freeden, 1996), distinguishable from right-populist accounts on the environment. For instance, the right-wing populist emphasis on protecting 'the people' often used as a justification for anti-environmental stances and policies, is notably different from the far right's endorsement of environmental protection through the intricate relationship of the nation and the land (see Forchtner and Kølvraa, 2015). Nevertheless, both the right-wing populist party in power (*PiS*) and far-right parties in opposition (*Ruch Narodowy—Konfederacja*) have been recognised either as climate sceptics or as outright deniers of anthropogenic climate change (see Lockwood, 2018: 715; Żuk and Szulecki, 2020). This attitude is in line with postmaterialist renderings of environmentalism as being an (unwanted) offspring of democratic transformation (Inglehart, 1971).

In contrast, there are far-right movements in Poland specifically focused on environmental activism. The far-right's propensity for grassroots organising (for examples, see Castelli, Gattinara and Froio,

<sup>1</sup> This can partly be attributed to problematic definitional properties of the far right, which is itself a contested term, overhauled by ambiguities and malleable features. I will here employ the term 'far right' instead of some other catchall terms used by scholars, such as the radical right, extreme right, hard right, right-wing populism, radical nationalism, neofascism, etc. Far right is the broadest of these terms, as it comprises the extreme right (neo-Nazis and other groups openly aiming to overthrow the democratic system) and the radical right (still operating within the boundaries of liberal democratic political systems).

2018), particularly the ways in which this grassroots engagement unfolds in eastern Europe (see Mikecz, 2015), renders these groups suitable for environmental activism. In eastern Europe, to an extent incomparable with other regions, the far right has managed to transform into 'movement parties', building on the potential of their local structures. Nevertheless, this potential is hindered by the ideological differences that exist between the far right and most green activists. Grassroots environmentalism is commonly associated with contentious politics and environmental justice, providing an apt opportunity for constructing alternative visions. As such, grassroots and bottom-up organising is often viewed as a blueprint for a 'progressive' and 'emancipatory' change (see Borras, 2019).

To understand the implications of far-right local environmental activism for its influence on collective identity and action, this chapter has the following aims. First, it explores the forms of far-right incursions into environmental thought, by looking at the content or the ideological morphology of 'Far-Right Ecologism' (FRE; Lubarda, 2020). Second, the chapter explores how FRE has been adjusted to local contexts, or how some of its elements have been assuaged and normalised by local networks of environmentalists in order to increase their support base. To do so, this chapter will first outline the ideological morphology of FRE, which attempts to situate the far-right ideological position in relation to the natural environment. This will allow for a zooming-in on the respective ecologisms of *Ecolektyw* and *Puszczyk*, before analysing how these groups interact with other grassroots organisations.

### The Political Far Right and Environmentalism: From Climate Denialism to Far-Right Ecologism?

The nexus of the political far right and environmental issues has only recently regained substantial attention from scholarship interested in the development of the formal far right (for examples, see Forchtner, 2019a and 2019b; Voss, 2014). However, the vast majority of scholarly works dealing with the contemporary far right and the environment focus most on far-right climate denialism (see Krange, Kaltenborn, and Hultman, 2018; Anshelm and Hultman, 2014).

The potential reason for the lack of sustained engagement with this topic is the somewhat unimaginable association of the far right with environmental activism, which has roots that predate traditional ecofascism (see Bruggemeier et al., 2005). In fact, the content of today's far-right ideological stance on this issue stems from nineteenthcentury writings on the environment, predominantly the *völkisch* and ethnonationalist traditions that contributed to the coinage of the ecofascist 'Blood and Soil' concept (Bramwell, 1985). The 'patriotic duty' to protect local and national environments may easily bear resemblance to the convergence of naturalism, organicism, and authoritarianism (Olsen, 1999), which are vivid in fascist ideals of national rebirth (Griffin, 1991). Moreover, organic farming has had its tributaries among the fascists and Nazis across Europe (for Germany, see Bramwell, 1985, for the UK, see Coupland, 2017, or for Hungary, Lubarda, 2020). Thus, aligning nativist, anti-immigrant sentiments with eugenic policies has certainly not been immanent only to the extreme right: occasionally, such links can be found amongst deep ecologists as well (see Staudenmeier, 2011).

Although eco-fascism has long been considered the most suitable term to describe cases of pro-green, far-right actors, it falls short of capturing the complex ideological content of the far right regarding the environment, which is derived from a variety of right-wing ideologies (such as conservatism, nationalism, and right-wing populism). For instance, the profound and abstract connection of nationalism and space (Smith, 1991) has led to an appreciation of the local environment, through conservative tropes of responsibility for and love of the home, termed *oikophilia* (Scruton, 2012). Moreover, the landscape has provided ample material for cultural mediation and reproduction in nationalism, ultimately leading to depictions of authentic, national environments as self-sustaining ecosystems (Sorlin, 1999; Forchtner and Kolvraa, 2015). The endorsement of localism, as opposed to abstract 'globalist' positions, have prompted some authors to imagine ecological forms of nationalism as potentially progressive and desirable (Gare, 1995; Dawson, 1996). Likewise, Barcena, Ibarra, and Zubiaga (1997: 302) argued that nationalism and environmentalism overlap in their defence of the local and particular.

However, the inwards-oriented mysticism associated with these outlooks can also lead to nativist sentiments epitomised in the perceived threat of foreign races and cultures under the banner of "preserving the ecosystem" from "foreign or invasive" species (Olwig, 2003: 61). This naturalist logic of purity lends itself to existing criticisms of human migration. The desire for order and stability, for clear (even if symbolic) boundaries, has been at the core of the vision of "polluting outsiders" (Lubarda, 2017), pointing to how environmental nativism may unfold (see Forchtner, 2019a).

From the anthropocentric 'oikophilia' to the populist struggle against "environmental elites" (Szasz, 1996), the far right's ideological morphology tailored to the environment requires a more comprehensive analytical framework. Simply calling these incursions 'eco-fascist' is insufficient and fails to account for the multifarious (and yet distinctive) ideological views of how perceptions of the environment inform the farright worldview. The notion of 'Far-Right Ecologism' (FRE) incorporates the broader right-wing spectrum in its ideological morphology (see Lubarda, 2020). The core concepts of this ideology revolve around binary, Manichean distinctions between 'good' and 'evil' (good nationalists vs. 'evil' capitalists/liberals), naturalism (viewing nature as a blueprint for social order), and organicism (the notion of nation, culture, and nature in a holistic union as a single organism). These elements are indispensable, and thus present in all possible variations and instances of FRE. Relevant adjacent and peripheral concepts to this conceptual core are nostalgia (for example, calls for a return or a 'rebirth' of the imagined ecological polity of the past by fostering 'traditional' practices such as family farming), autarky, mysticism and spirituality (from the polytheism or paganism of the eco-fascists, to Christian ecologists' view of nature as God's gift), and authority (survivalism or decentralisation through a 'family of families'). These elements may constitute FRE as an ideal type, a heuristic device that enables the identification of distinctive features of the far-right groups under scrutiny below.

The data used in this chapter originates from fieldwork conducted in Poland between November 2018 and September 2019. The corpus consists of participant observation notes and eight qualitative, semi-structured interviews with representatives of far-right organisations (*Ecolektyw*, *Puszczyk*, *Praca Polska*), as well as social media posts and media items posted on Polish online portals related to the environmental activism of these organisations, or their cooperation therein. As FRE is envisaged as a loose analytical framework that helps the coding process, the analysis will also reflect on the interactions of activists with the topics they are focused on, as well as other relevant actors in the process.

## *Ecolektyw* and *Puszczyk*: The 'Other' Type of Grassroots Organising

*Ecolektyw* is an informal, self-proclaimed eco-nationalist organisation operating in Poland. It originated in 2016, from *Greenline Front Polska*, the Polish chapter of an international eco-fascist movement formed by a group of Ukrainian nationalists. Greenline Front was established as a loose, leaderless, and 'memberless' organisation, founded by "nationalconscious people, who reject the system of modern anthropocentric values and its procreations, such as capitalism and monotheistic religions" (*Ecolektyw*, Facebook, 15 May 2018). In addition to these spiritual underpinnings, the organisation uses the slogan 'blood-soilnature', coupled with esoteric mysticism of *völkisch* nationalism. The logo of *Ecolektyw* is emblematic of FRE's appropriation of the runic alphabet, characteristic of identitarian and neo-Nazi movements. The 'Life Rune' (Algis or Elhaz) is the central part of the logo, and originates from early Germanic and Nordic alphabets, which were later associated with the Nazis (in particular, the SS's *Lebensborn* project), but has also appeared in diverse neo-pagan and occult movements around the world (see Dahmer, 2019).

The materials posted on the 'official' blog of the Greenline Front caution against "harmful racial policies" that posit a danger to the imagined equilibrium of nature and human beings (Greenline Front Blog, 2019). The blog also comprises quotes from deep-ecologists such as Pentti Linkola, denoting democracy as the "religion of death" (Linkola, 2019), but also some less controversial conceptual connections such as that of Leonardo da Vinci's ethical vegetarianism. In the self-acclaimed "revolt against the modern world", Greenline Front evokes the tenets of the *völkisch lebensreform* (life-reform) movement, such as a backto-nature lifestyle, organic production, but also underlying asketism and Manicheanism. Within this cosmology, the fundamental aim of Greenline Front (and later, *Ecolektyw*) was to combat the capitalist vision of a "stateless person who wants us all reduced to consuming larvae" (Greenline Front, 2018). Although the Greenline Front had relative success in its first year, the movement has slowly died out since, with the majority of its influential informal leaders hampered by a combination of personal problems, the pressure of authorities and the media.

After a brief period of inactivity, in May 2018 Greenline Front Polska changed its name to *Ecolektyw* (ecological collective), which in the words of one of its founders, aimed to "establish a new trajectory and form of organising as compared to strictly nationalist Greenline Front tenets" (Interview with Rex, 15 June 2019). This alleged move away from established nationalist, far-right tenets was primarily induced by the lack of interest of the Polish Autonomous Nationalists (who constituted the majority of this movement), as well as organisational obstacles caused by the Greenline Front's previous ideological standpoints.

Unlike *Ecolektyw*'s (openly) eco-fascist foundations, *Praca Polska*  (Poland Works) and *Puszczyk* (in English, tawny owl)—*Naturokultura Polska* are the offspring of attempts to reconceptualise the connection between Polish nationalism and ecological thought.2 The former was established in 2018, with an aim to deal with the issues of social justice, 'blue collar' and female workers. This essentially 'left' dimension of Polish nationalism (also present in other contemporary eastern European far-right groups) has a notably different image from previous militant, falanga-style marches in black or green shirts (ONR and Autonomous Nationalists as cases in point). It addresses issues associated with neoliberal capitalism as fundamentally problematic and aims to contextualise the multi-faceted nature of problems instead of resorting merely to the revival of a long-lost and supposedly acclaimed past. *Puszczyk* was an environment-focused offspring of cooperation between female members of *Praca Polska* and ONR*,* aiming to bring together nationalists and environmentalists as an educational link on the imaginary modernist border between "nature and culture" (Puszczyk, 2020). The organisation did not have its formal membership, as most of its activities were organised by the female co-leaders. Since its followers were also a part of other far-right organisations, its relevance

<sup>2</sup> This nexus has been recognised by other far-right organisations, such as the All-Polish Youth (*Młodzież Wszechpolska*), which proclaimed the pioneer of nature conservationism in Poland, Jan-Gwalbert Pawlikowski (1891–1962), as their 'patron' for the year 2019.

should be evaluated through its personal networks rather than the link itself. Its eclectic nature brought *Puszczyk* severe organisational hardships, and its webpage is now almost defunct or promoting the activities of *Praca Polska*. With these continuous rearrangements in mind, the environmental activism of these organisations rests on the continued articulation of their ideological tenets. Thus, the chapter will now explore the ideological attempts of the far right to 'reclaim' ecologism.

### Environmental Manicheanism: *Ecolektyw* and *Puszczyk*'s FRE

Within the Manichean, binary vision of FRE, the ideal proponent of such an ideology claims to distinguish acceptable practices from unacceptable practices, friends from foes, 'us' from 'others'. Hence, *Ecolektyw* attempts to represent environmental issues that are distinct to Poland. Jettisoning the consumerist mindset, partly based on neo-Malthusian critiques of overproduction and overpopulation, the representatives of movements under scrutiny jointly disdain "pop-environmentalism: conducting activities with a solely promotional, PR-purpose" (Interview with Maria, *Puszczyk and Praca Polska*, 7 September 2019, and Stella, *Ecolektyw*, 2018). To them, the popularisation of environmental concern is a by-product of the "world of excess", as Maria frames it, the condition of today's times incurred by the "consumerist logic of neo-liberal capitalism disparaging natural, ecological communities: the nations". In a similar vein, environmental organisations with global outreach, such as Greenpeace and WWF, are referred to as "money-making corporates" (Kamil, 2019), lacking genuine interest in local struggles. 'Struggle' is a deliberate wordchoice here and a point of departure from 'left' grassroots organisations, which becomes paramount through the neo-Spenglerian and somewhat mystic outlook on Manichaeism:

We declare war on the modern world, and on the laws it tries to impose on us, we will consistently do everything to win this war and help people wake up from a deadly dream.

Let the storm begin, which will bring us the desired victory! Let it bring us the death of the modern world! (*Ecolektyw*'s Facebook page, 2018)

Within this Manichean imaginary, far-right ecologists point to several actors responsible for environmental destruction. Other than the usual culprits (e.g. 'liberals' and 'leftists'), far-right ecologist movements, somewhat unexpectedly, blame the leniency of the Catholic Church for the devastation of the natural environment in Poland:

There is an ideological problem with Polish Catholicism and the environment—the sheer anthropocentrism, with everything being subordinated to humans including animals […] so in small cities, where the influence of churches is very big and possibly harmful for these places […], these human-centred teachings of the church can be problematic for protecting the environment at the moment at the local level (Agata, 2019)

Apart from the issue with the anthropocentric nature of the Church's teachings, such stances are congruent with the alt-right and national anarchist discontent with the hierarchy of clerics. However, the criticisms of *Ecolektyw, Praca Polska,* and *Puszczyk* also point towards their own ranks. Therefore, nationalists (this term is used in selfascriptions) are perceived as "lethargic", "uninterested", and "wrongly adamant":

A lot of nationalists still don't realise the importance of this subject. Nationalists associate ecology with LGBT and similar types of stuff because of the activism of these green NGOs and parties. So, they don't want to engage with the topic, which is wrong […] in nationalist organisations, people who try to talk about the environment, global warming and similar types of topics are laughed at (Małgorzata, 2019).

Another part of these criticisms is aimed at the so-called "salon nationalists" (Zsofia, 2019), quasi-elitist representatives of political parties who disregard the relevance of environmental issues, allegedly giving the topic away to leftists and liberals. Logically, most of these criticisms point to the ruling, right-wing populist *PiS*, but also the far-right parties in opposition, such as *Ruch Narodowy* and partly the All-Polish Youth (*Młodzież Wszechpolska*), who openly dispute scientific findings regarding climate change, and endorse hunting.

So, what exactly is at the core of this applied Far-Right Ecologism? Admittedly, the young leadership of *Ecolektyw* departs from the mysticism of deep ecology (most notably Linkola), identified as problematic by the social ecology scholarship (Biehl, 1989). Apart from the critique of the Catholic Church, the undeniable spiritualism of these movements is based on the appreciation of the esoteric and authentic values of the natural environment. This appreciation is derived from an assumed place-based identity associated with an imagined, national community. However, this appreciation of the local serves as the foundation of grassroots activism. The following passage from Rex, one of the leaders of *Ecolektyw*, explains how this place-based identity melds his engagement with these topics. It also addresses why *Ecolektyw* insists on activities entirely conducted and led by activists from the area immediately affected by a particular environmental issue. In his attempt to disassociate himself from Hitler, Rex nevertheless embraces the *völkisch*, ethnonationalist teachings appropriated by the Nazi party. This explains the 'blood-and-soil', naturalist-organicist imaginary that informs this type of activism, simultaneously disassociating itself with the Nazi regime.

I appreciate the *Völkisch* tradition not because of Hitler—I did not live in Hitler's time, and Hitler does not live in my time. No, I like the *Völkisch*  tradition because I believe in the connection between the nation and the land. Not in the esoteric and magical, mystical sense, but this I derive from my own childhood. I was born in a small city, where there were lots of forests and lakes. My family owned land, they were farmers, and apart from living with cows, I realised how dangerous and severely polluted local rivers became because of profit-seeking individuals and companies, endangering not only our farm but the very idyllic landscape of my childhood. (Rex, *Ecolektyw*, 2019)

This ideological resentment against extractivism and capitalism based on personal experience also sets the ground for topical, issue-based positions of FRE. Unlike the majority of far-right organisations in Poland (including the far-right in western Europe), my respondents are not climate denialists. They tend to be generally supportive of nuclear power as an alternative to coal, which is the primary source of power energy produced in Poland and is considered "black gold" (*Czarne złoto*), typically an important element of national pride (Bridge and Kuchler, 2018: 136).

## FRE in Practice: Place-Based Identity as the Common Denominator of the Far-Right and Environmentalists

The use of war-like metaphors paired with mysticism immanent to "right-wing hippies" (Staudenmeier, 1995), such as a spiritual ritual of lighting fire with the symbols of the runic alphabet (as presented on *Ecolektyw*'s Instagram page, 14 February 2020) did not gain substantial attention from the far-right public. After failing to obtain consistent support from the far-right supporters, the leaders of *Ecolektyw* recently indicated an intention to pivot their strategies and collaborate with nonnationalist organisations and movements through an endorsement of 'nationalist' localism.