All We Want is the Earth: Land, Labour and Movements Beyond Environmentalism

Sixty years ago, an upsurge of social movements protested the ecological harms of industrial capitalism. In subsequent decades, environmentalism consolidated into forms of management and business strategy that aimed to tackle ecological degradation while enabling new forms of green economic growth. However, the focus on spaces and species to be protected saw questions of human work and histories of colonialism pushed out of view.

This book traces a counter-history of modern environmentalism from the 1960s to the present day. It focuses on claims concerning land, labour and social reproduction arising at important moments in the history of environmentalism made by feminist, anti-colonial, Indigenous, workers’ and agrarian movements. Many of these movements did not consider themselves ‘environmental,’ and yet they offer vital ways forward in the face of escalating ecological damage and social injustice.

Patrick Bresnihan is a Lecturer in the Department of Geography at Maynooth University. He works across the interdisciplinary fields of political ecology, science and technology studies, and environmental humanities. His current research focuses on data centres, renewable energy infrastructures and bog landscapes in the context of the global ‘green’ transition and environmental justice. .

Naomi Millner is a Senior Lecturer in Human Geography, Geographical Sciences, at the University of Bristol. She is an activist-researcher, community gardener and storyteller. Her research projects are linked with questions of land and the politics of knowledge, and she is currently working with social movements and community groups in Central America and the UK on issues surrounding food and land poverty.