Transnational Environmentalism at Europe's Boundaries: Identity Movements in Lithuania and Turkey

This article discusses the environmental activism of the Aukuras and Romuva movements in Lithuania, and of several organizations opposed to a dam project in the Tunceli region of Turkey. Since the late 1980s, these movements have combined celebration of cultural traditions and identities with environmental protests, lobbying and education projects. Implicit in these movements is a response to criticisms that environmentalism has become overly bureaucratized and perhaps hegemonic, and a challenge to theories that view global environmentalism as a homogeneous movement. The author argues that although these movements are similarly shaped by globalizing forces — including economic liberalization, migration and international institutions — globalization has, paradoxically perhaps, given rise to social movements blending traditional, local identities with global concerns such as the environment. These movements suggest that environmental activism in developing nations subject to forces of globalization may bear little resemblance to past movements.