Social Cohesion Environmentalism: Theorizing the New Wave of Social Alliances among Climate, Faith-Inspired and Social Justice Movements

I. METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS

This article, though proceeding from a limited use of material collected through direct observation of the Portuguese climate jobs campaign between 2015 and 2018, and through phone interviews of some key actors of the South African Climate jobs campaign between 2016 and 2018, is primarily based on bibliographical sources. In fact, in order to get the material necessary for the building of my argument and theory, I used both published and unpublished scientific and grey literature available in libraries and internet sources. The systematic, synthetic and critical approach I took while reviewing both the printed and electronic documents, was oriented by qualitative and not quantitative considerations. Using that bibliographical methodological approach, I opted for an analysis that "requires that data be examined and interpreted in order to elicit meaning, gain understanding, and develop empirical [as well as theoretical] knowledge" (Bowen, 2009:28). In fact, taking into account Isaac Newton's advice who, in a February 1675 letter to Robert Hooke stated: "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants" (quoted by Caussa, Aldeguer and Santamaria, 2017:34), and considering the fact that "any piece of research is based on previous achievements and they are all little (or not that little) steps forward in any area of scientific knowledge" (Caussa, Aldeguer and Santamaria, 2017:34), I started by doing a review of available writings on Social movements and social mobilizations. Such review was instrumental in putting to light the knowledge gap related to the non-determination of shared-values that, in the climate changing context, is bringing actors from various origin and completely different interests and, at time, conflictual historical trajectories to come together and join efforts to push for transition to a low/post carbon society. Realizing such a knowledge gap led me to the conceptualization of the social cohesion environmentalism (SCE), which is the main contribution of this article. To reach its goal, this article will basically be developed around four main axes: After presenting Social Movements and Mobilizations in the nutshell (1), the two following sections will dwell on approaches that are specifically relevant to the conceptualization of SCE, namely the New Social Movements and its theoretical debate between postmateriality and materiality (2) the Resource mobilization approach with its typology of viable mobilizable resources necessary for any social mobilization (3). The last section, building on the gap discovered in the previous ones, will mostly focus on developing the SCE concept (4).

II. UNDERSTANDING SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND MOBILIZATIONS IN THE NUTSHELL

Social movements, despite the difficulty of being unanimously defined by scientists, can be globally understood as forms of collective mobilization that emerge in response to situations of inequality, oppression and/or unmet social, political, economic or cultural demands. In this regard, they can be defined as an organised set of constituents pursuing a common political agenda of change over time (Batliwala, 2012:3).

On the other hand, the concept of mobilization refers to a process of increasing the ability to act collectively by building the loyalty of a social sector to an organization or a group of leaders (Gamson, 1975:69). It can equally be seen as a process that allows a social group to move from a passive to an "active participation in public life" (Tilly, 1978:69). Beside the difficulty in unanimously defining the concept, we equally have the development of a multiplicity of schools of thought that, along the history, have tried to explain the reality of social movement from different perspectives. Among others, we can mention the collective behavior developers' view of social movements as non-institutionalized efforts aiming at a social change (Jenkins, 1983), or as collective enterprises to establish a new order of life "and maintained that in the beginning," (Blumer, 1951:199). For Lang and Lang (1961:490) they are just a large-scale, widespread, and continuing, elementary action in pursuit of an objective that affects and shapes the social order in some fundamental aspect. That is why they are often seen to be amorphous, poorly organized and without well-structured claims. Going beyond such analysis, other thinkers developed the argument according to which people get involved in social movements because of a situation of social deprivation and inequality they are victims of. In this context, the feeling of being deprived is the linking factor among the actors of the movement, and they come together to join forces to claim what others in societies have and they do not, and to ask for more justice. Also, people can be driven into social movement because of unfulfilled expectations that they view as being the consequence of the unfavorable social order. As such,

[To] predict where and when social movements are likely to emerge, one needs to go looking, in a given society, for the variations in the degree of dissatisfaction and social discontent, the signs of new structural tensions, the increase perception of injustice, the frustrations in new kinds of aspirations that affect part of the population due to external events (Pizzorno, 1990:76-77).

Beside those approaches to the understanding of social movements, we have others such as the rational choice that stresses on the rationality of the options that are considered by social movements in their mobilizations (Opp, 2013). The political opportunity approach, on its side, focusses on the political contexts as windows of opportunities that motivates the birth of social mobilization (Suh, 2001), while the framing approach points out the importance of the discourse and the framing of social facts as motivating factors for social mobilization (Benford and Snow, 2000; Snow, Vliegenthart and Ketelaars, 2018). The social movement impact, also known as the outcome theory, mostly dwells on evaluating the impact of social movements both on their members, the political process and the society as a whole (Bosi and Uba, 2009; Amenta, 2014). The resource mobilization, that I will further develop because of its implications for the SCE, stresses on the various types of resources that are mobilized and that can guarantee the success or failure of social mobilizations. Also, the New social movements approach, that is another key lens in understanding the SCE, and that I will also develop further stresses on the analysis of new forms of social mobilizations. However, in the current fast-evolving context witnessing new forms of climate justice activisms, those frameworks present a critical limitation. In fact, they do not help to render account of the shared-values that, in the age of climate change, bring movements from various origins, and to some extend non-complementary interests, and that historically have had divergent trajectories, to join their efforts in the struggle for a safe environment and sound global climate. Faced with such a conceptual gap the main contribution of this article, conceptual in nature, is to postulate and develop the SCE. In the nutshell, the SCE developed here can be understood as a conceptual tool to analyze the challenges, opportunities and possibilities that the shared concern for the protection of the environment and for climate justice offers for historically divergent, and even opposed social actors, to come together and conjugate their efforts to mobilize and cumulatively demand for climate and social justice both in the climate changing context and in the low/post-carbon transition context. This article, in its analytical approach, will be divided into three main sections. However, before delving into the development of the SCE, the two following sections will respectively analyze the New Social Movements and the Resource Mobilization approaches and their limitations in fully rendering account of the new climate justice mobilizations context. The last section, drawing on the two first sections will postulate and develop the concept of SCE, based on the analysis and some very recent and ongoing climate justice movements' narratives and mobilizations around the world.

III. NEW SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: THE MATERIALITY VS POSTMATERIALITY DEBATE

May 1968 students' actions and, in general, the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s marked the history of social movement in a very particular way. In fact, during that period, traditional working-class movements were losing strength as a social movement and, at the same time new forms of protests emerged and were not automatically linked to the defense of the working-classes' interests as we witnessed during the previous periods of the industrial era. As Wieviorka rightly described such transition:

There was a move from the industrial to post-industrial era, and the protest movements in post-industrial societies were no longer the working-class movement, historically on the wane, but the struggles of students, anti-nuclear groups, regionalist groups, women, and so on.[...] Whatever the case may be, with the struggles inaugurated by social movements in the USA, France or Italy, the very concept of social movement was applied to struggles sufficiently different from those of the working-class movement in the previous period to justify speaking of 'new social movements'. In this second period, the material characteristics of the actors differed in many confused, and therefore not always very distinct, ways from those of the social movement of the industrial era (Wieviorka, 2005:5).

The originality of those new social movements was not only related to the nature of their instigators, but also and above all to the nature of their demands. If in the industrial era, instigators of social movements were mostly workers gathered under their unions to defend their rights and interests in a truly Marxist perspective, the instigators of new social movements are diffused in nature, and range from students, feminists, anti-nuclear, regional secessionists, environmentalists and social justice movements and activists among others, fighting for common causes completely detached from traditional working-classes' causes and aspirations. As Touraine, Wieviorka and Dubet (1984:316) state: The new protests thematics can only acquire real force if they are taken away from the consciousness of the working class, and the working groups clearly show that new social movements weaken the consciousness of working class, erode its belief in itself, far from constituting enrichment factors for it. This retreat of the old structure led to the birth of a new class involved in social struggle.

"The new class." This is a complex contemporary class structure that Claus Offe identifies as "threefold" in its composition: The new middle class, elements of the old middle class, and peripheral groups outside the labor market. As stated by Offe, the new middle class has evolved in association with the old one in the new social movements because of its high levels of education and its access to information and resources. Groups of people that are marginal in the labor market, such as students, housewives, and the unemployed participate in the collective actions as a consequence of their higher levels of free time, their position of being at the receiving end of bureaucratic control, and their inability to be fully engaged in the society, specifically in terms of employment and consumption. (Boundless 2016)

Secondly, if the traditional social movements had a clearly determined adversary that was the Capital, the adversary of new social movements is of blurred identity. Thus, unlike the working-class movement, whose social adversary was relatively clear and identifiable with real leading and dominant actors, the 'new social movements' have only inchoate and unstable representations of their adversary. They are involved in conflicts in which the adversary becomes impersonal, distant, undefined or ill-defined (Wieviorka 2005:6) Lastly, if in the previous context what prevailed was material in nature, and was related to work conditions and workers' rights, in the later context, the demand are immaterial in nature and, even when invoked, material demands are peripheral as Wieviorka states it:

These 'new social movements' may, of course, put social demands in the forefront: the students denounced their difficult living conditions, their 'poverty', the Occitan campaigns had socio-economic dimensions when they were expressed by small-scale winegrowers exposed to the market, and so on. [...] But on the whole, they tend to argue, the cause for cultural values and changes rather than becoming involved in classically social types of action; these actors are much more culturally than socially oriented. (Wieviorka, 2005:6)

Just as to say, the fights of new social movements are mostly related to values rather than material, and the post-materiality of such fights can be justified by the very nature of their instigators. In fact, the relative growth of the decommodified segment of the population guarantees the social existence of large parts of the new middle class and possibly even paves the ground for new forms of political alliances between these two elements (Offe, 1985:837). Such alliances born of the coalition between the old and the new middle classes are the perfect ground for new forms of social demands, that are purely ideological or cultural, given the fact that they are not subjected to the day to day survival fight of the working class. That is what brought some authors to define new social movements in terms of post-materiality.

It is important to mention from the onset that the concept of postmaterialism was coined and used for the first time by the American Sociologist Ronald Inglehart in his 1977 book The Silent Revolution: Changing Values and Political Styles Among Western Publics. In its Chapter 10 entitled "The Post-Materialist Phenomenon" the author describes the shift in individual and societal priorities from survival-based needs to needs related to self-expression in the advanced and rich countries. This vision is summarized by Michael Levy in the following statement as part of an entry in the Encyclopedia Britannica in 2007:

Until the 1970s, it was nearly universal for individuals to prioritize so-called materialist values such as economic growth and maintaining order; on the other hand, postmaterialists give top priority to such goals as environmental protection, freedom of speech, and gender equality. The shift, particularly among citizens living in Western countries, reflected a change from an environment in which one was aware that survival was precarious to a post-World War II world where most felt that survival could be taken for granted. Age cohorts born after World War II in advanced industrial societies spent their formative years under levels of prosperity that were unprecedented in human history, and the welfare state reinforced the feeling that survival was secure, producing an intergenerational value change that has gradually transformed the political and cultural norms of these societies. Survey evidence gathered in the United States, Western Europe, and Japan since the 1970s has demonstrated that an intergenerational shift has made central new political issues and provided the impetus for new political movements. (Levy, 2007)

According to the above authors and other postmaterialists, the birth and development of postmaterialism can be historically, geographically and ideologically situated. Historically, it originated in the decade 70s as a consequence of the fall of the industrial era and cumulatively with the birth of the post-industrial era. Geographically, it is related to developed countries, mainly to Western Europe, the USA and Japan, countries where populations had reached a certain level of material satisfaction and possession and could therefore dedicate themselves to demands other than those related to the satisfaction of survival needs. Ideologically it is situated in some sort of post-Marxist perspective where social struggles are no more class-related struggles between labour and the capital, but to the ideological clashes supported by new social alliances. In fact, if the Marxist discussions of social movements state that they are built on the idea that the workers will overtake state institutions by force [...], new social movements are more focused on invoking changes in cultures and in sub-political areas (Crossley, 2002:150-152). This shift is basically justified and sustained by the fact that, in the post-industrial and postmaterialist eras the conflict raised by the new social movements does not only belong to a class but to a social alliance. This alliance brings together not only the new middle class with elements of the old middle class, but also and especially peripheral or disadvantaged groups ("decommodified") (Boucher, 1990:48). Among the immaterial values defended by postmaterialist social movements we can mention not only values related to freedom of speech, gender equality, and self-determination aspects among others, but also and above all those related to environmental consciousness. From this angle, as Martinez-Alier (1997:315) points out, the cultural shifts towards subjective postmaterialist values are making some societies more sensitive toward environmental issues. In addition, as he continues his analysis, some authors believe that the growth of environmentalism in rich countries is explained mainly by a post-1968 shift to "postmaterialist" cultural values. This optimistic position, which takes "dematerialization" for granted is known as Inglehart's postmaterialist thesis (Martinez-Alier, 1997:314). This vision is further enhanced by Wieviorka who describes the postmateriality of environmental struggles in the following terms:

The main body of the anti-nuclear movement was made up of ecologists, and from then on environmental militants were to play a central role in many of the struggles in which, in the last resort, it was a question of setting up a different model of the nature/culture relationship from that imposed by the multinational firms and states that may have supported them. These actors wanted to invent a new way of living together; they thought that increasing production was not necessarily a sign of progress and they were concerned about what sort of planet their generation would leave to those following them (Wieviorka, 2005:6).

Nevertheless, speaking precisely of environmental struggles and climate justice which are of concern in this article, the postmaterial reasons underlying the social movements' activism can be questioned. Matinez-Alier's interrogations and critics are of great relevance in that line. In fact, as he made an interrogation already in a 1997 article: Which are the reasons for the growth of environmentalism: The action taken or the concern expressed over the state of the environment due to human action? (Martinez-Alier, 1997:314) Taking environmentalism only from the postmaterialist perspective is very limitative and cannot properly render account of the complexity of environmental activism around the world. This approach may, to as extend, justify the environmental fights in the global North in general, but it silences completely the multitude of environmental conflicts and activities of environmentalists in the global South. It may explain the environmental consciousness of the middle class, but it forgets the environmental activism of working classes and that of the poor and the neglected of the society. Already, justifying the rise of environmentalism in the Global North by the fact that people have reached a certain level of material satisfaction, and can therefore consecrate themselves to the defense of values, being them social, cultural, political among others, is problematic. Martinez-Alier (2002:4) for example argue[s] that western environmentalism grew in the 1970s not because the western economies had reached a 'post-material' stage but, precisely the contrary, because of material concerns about increasing chemical pollution and nuclear risks. Besides stating that, he goes further and gives a precise case to support his point:

Resistance to hydroelectricity in the North American west, such as the Sierra Club was offering, went easily hand-in-hand with the defence of beautiful scenery and wild spaces in celebrated struggles at the Snake River or the

Columbia and Colorado rivers. Resistance to nuclear energy was to be based on the dangers of radiation, worry about nuclear waste, and the links between the civil and military use of nuclear power (Martinez-Alier, 2002:4).

Beside those material reasons underlying the environmental struggles in the so-called postmaterialist era in the developed countries, it is also important to note, as Martinez-Alier does, that the survival of their economies rely on the usage of large amount of energy and material and the availability of sinks and reservoirs to dump the carbon dioxide emanating from their production and consumption activities. Just to say, even if the postmateriality is claimed, it is nevertheless based on the continuous availability of materials, and the survival of the postmaterialist ideology fight largely depends on the availability and continuous exploitation of material goods. Equally, as I mentioned above, justifying the environmental consciousness using the argument of a middle class that is free from the needs of basic survival goods seems to my understanding erroneous. This, because it underlooks and even forgets the multiplicity of environmental movements fighting in the global South, or even the environmentalism of the working classes in the global North itself, what is called environmentalism of the poor. The environmentalism of the poor, it should be noted, is the convenient umbrella concept used by Martinez-Alier to assemble all those social concerns and forms of social action based on a view of the environment as a source of livelihood (Martinez-Alier, 2002:263). Obviously, there are feelings of the sacredness of nature among many peoples all over the Earth that motivated them to fight for its protection, but that can in no way be understood under the concept of postmaterialist values as defined by Ronald Inglehart. People feel the need to fight, because they are all bound with the immediate material use of nature which is their ultimate life-support system (Martinez-Alier, 2002).

From the above-developed points, I argue that the rise and development of environmental new social movements cannot be limited to postmaterialist considerations. In fact, at the core of their fight there is the protection of the environment which itself is material, but also and above all there are always attached material demands that are taken into consideration. In this sense, we can see for example that the global discussion on carbon dioxide is made locally relevant by linking it to campaigns in favour of poor people and good public transports and against urban planning in the service of the motor car (Martinez-Alier, 1997:320), and those are among others the resources that are mobilized to make the cause more appealing and engaging for all social actors.

IV. RESOURCE MOBILIZATION THEORY: ORIGIN AND TYPOLOGY OF MOBILIZABLE RESOURCES

Just like the New Social Movements, the Resource mobilization approach was first developed in the decade 1970s. In fact, in 1973, Anthony Oberschall published a book entitled Social Conflict and Social Movements in which he formulated the resource mobilization theory. In that book, he mostly focused on the social and structural factors affecting the success or the failure of social movements, rather than dwelling on the factors motivating people to join social movements as traditional research on social movements have been doing (Jenkins, 1983). According to him, no matter the reasons that motivate people to involve in social movements, the key factor making a social struggle a reality and a success or failure is its capacity to mobilize and efficiently manage resources. This approach therefore analyzes social movements by giving a central place to their organizational structures, to the strategic interactions between organizations involved and to the relations between social organizations or movements and their environment (Lapeyronnie, 1988). The organization structure is therefore considered as the most important and even the essential part of every social struggle (Jenkins, 1983). From the perspective of resources mobilization, social frustrations or discontents are considered relatively constant and necessary for the formation of a group, but secondary (Boucher, 1990:6), because the society is made up of a multitude of structural conflicts, and is subjected to rapid changes that create and enhance grievances on a relatively constant basis (Gusfiled, 1968; Jenkins and Perrow, 1977; Tilly, 1978; Oberschall, 1978; Buechler, 1993). So, what matters in the emergence of social movements is not the lack of reasons or motivations for mobilization, but the ability to gather the necessary resources, capitalize on those social frustrations to galvanize and organize people to go to the streets and defend their common causes. Individuals' decision to join a social movement is not only related to the frustrations, but also and above all, to the self-identification with the objectives of a given social movement that Kanter (1968) calls identification with the symbolic objectives. In this context, mobilization is understood as a process by which a group secures collective control over the resources for collective action. The major issues therefore are the resources controlled by the group prior to mobilization efforts, the process by which the group pools resources and directs these towards social change, and the extent to which outsiders increase the pool of resources (Jenkins, 1983:533). In other words, we can say that the resources mobilization approach highlights the importance of political, organizational and strategic factors in the formation and evolution of social movements in the one hand and, on the other hand, tackles the study of the relationship between individual and collective action and that of the individual participation in social movements from a different perspective; instead of approaching the relation from the perspective of social motivation, it does it from the perspective of contribution to the mobilization of resources (Lapeyronnie, 1988:602). Just to say, instead of trying to understand why do people involve or why do social movements arise, this approach tries to answer the how questions. Therefore this line of thought endorses the assumption that social movements are based on calculative rationality like any other political action. As such, they will always consider the strategies that help maximize the availability of resources, minimize the use of limited resources and bring the best alliances possible. In short, we can say that in this perspective, the strategic aspect takes a prominent place. The general mobilization of people, the mobilization of necessary and useful resources, the building and capitalization of political support and other groups, the choice of the necessary resources, the necessity or not of a centralized organization are among others the main questions around which the analyses of this theoretical field gravitate. (Jenkins, 1983; Crozier et Friedberg, 1977)

The success or failure of any social movement depends on its capacity to mobilize and use resources to attain common or shared goals. They can be any material resource such as labor, wages, economies and the right to material goods or services; or non-material resources such as authority, moral values, commitment, trust, friendship, qualifications, and zeal among others (Oberschall, 1973). They can equally be the wealth, weapons, votes and anything else, as long as it is usable for action with a view of securing the common interests (Tilly, 1978). The resource mobilization approach therefore focuses on the resource patterns needed for action and on the constraints and opportunities for a successful action; it emphasizes the problem of organization and the calculative rationality of movements. Resources considered here can take various forms such as:

4.1 Material (money and physical capital)

Material resources are in general one of the key elements considered by social movements when they want to take actions. The provision of those materials may depend on the general economic wellbeing of the population involved and readiness to participate by their goods and money (Fetner and Kush, 2008; Soule and King, 2008), or the resources available within the socially discontented groups (Olzak and Ryo, 2007). These can also come as a result of the capacity of social movement to have access to grants and other government funds (Larson and Soule, 2009), or the capacity of the organization to constitute a substantial budget through fundraising activities (McCammon et al., 2001; Andrews et al., 2010). It is important to note that the resources considered as material can be any physical or financial capital, even though some authors consider as well the level of media coverage received by a social movement (Barker and Plummer, 2002). All these material resources are of great importance as they condition the achievement of desired outcomes (McCammon et al., 2001)

4.2 Moral

Moral resources include among other things the legitimacy and authenticity of the cause being defended, the solidarity and sympathetic support from members and the possible endorsement from celebrity and other public figures (Cress and Snow, 1996). In fact, by endorsing a specific campaign, or using their image and fame for a particular social movement, public figures and celebrities increase the media coverage, lead to more public attention, and open possibility of establishing new contacts and building new alliances; and all this, in many contexts help access other resources (Edwards and Kane, 2014:217). Equally, the causes being defended, and the concepts used to make the cause public may bear moral and ethical values capable of bringing in more adepts. Concepts such as "climate justice", "gender inequalities", "social justice", "workers' rights", "fair trade", "sustainability", "cruelty-free" or "gay affirming" have been produced and disseminated by social movements (Edwards and Kane, 2014). The use of those ethic-oriented concepts has helped in mobilizing populations for environmental and human rights causes among others.

4.3 Social-Organizational

The social-organizational resources refer to the strategies, the social networks, the recruitment mechanisms and the goals among others (Olzak and Ryo, 2007; Johnson, 2008; Soule and King, 2008; Gillham and Edwards, 2011). Those organizational mechanisms are often considered as a proof of strength and vitality of social movements (Kane, 2003; Olzak and Ryo, 2007; Johnson, 2008). The accumulation of such resources are important not only for ongoing movements, but also for future mobilizations, as it serves as capitalizable experiences facilitating protests (Gillham and Edwards, 2011), and can contribute to the achievement of other goals. In fact, a good organization can easily lead to a multitude of positive outcomes (Greve et al., 2006; Johnson, 2008) including a better visibility and media coverage. The various power logics and membership structure are important elements of the social movements, as they can condition the success or failure of mobilizations (Edwards and Foley, 2003; Johnson, 2008). Finally, the level of formalization (Staggenborg, 1988; Andrews and Edwards, 2004) is also important, as a formally organized and bureaucratic structure, including infrastructures, social ties and networks, affinity groups, and coalitions (McCarthy and Wolfson, 1996) play a role in social cohesion or disentanglement of movements.

4.4 Human (volunteers, staff, leaders)

Human resource factors include everything from the quality to the size of the population that is receptive to mobilization (Fetner and Kush, 2008), the current and pre-existing networks that facilitate and maintain the organizational and the mobilizational spirit among members and sympathizers of a given social movement (Edwards and McCarthy, 2004; Kane, 2010; Kane, 2013), and the actual organizational membership including volunteers, staff and leaders among others (Olzak and Ryo, 2007; Andrews et al., 2010). The quality of membership may as well refer to the proportion of sympathizers or participants with a certain level of education. In their analysis Edwards and Kane (2014:209) conclude that the prevalence of human capital, measured as the proportion of residents with a college degree, has been found to be associated with the spatial distribution and concentration of movement organizations. In other contexts, that prevalence is supplemented by people with value-added human capital components like experience, insight, skills, or expertise (Becker, 1964). In the specific case of environmental fights McGurty (2009) argues that the presence of experienced civil rights activists accelerated the emergence of the subsequent environmental justice movement. Just to say, even the experiences gained in one social movement can be greatly useful in another movement defending a different cause. Those activists' experiences form as well part of the cultural heritage of the social movement.

4.5 Cultural

The cultural elements that help in the mobilization and adherence to social movements include among others activists' experiences, logos, social symbols and identity among others. Those cultural elements help individuals in identifying themselves not only with the movements but also with the causes being defended. This aspect is largely illustrated in this example of the environmental movement in the United States as described by Edwards and Kane:

Through decades of sustained resistance to racial injustice African Americans had produced a rich repository of symbols, ideas, rhetorical frames, and behavioral repertoires of protest that could be transferred to the issue of environmental inequality. Over the last 50 years, those cultural resources have entered the public domain and became culturally available and accessible to subsequent social movements. This category of cultural resources also includes movement or issue-relevant productions like music, literature, blogs, web pages, or films/videos. Such cultural products facilitate the recruitment and socialization of new adherents and help movements maintain their readiness and capacity for collective action (Edwards and Kane, 2014:216).

This can also be supplemented by the use of cultural events such as concerts, movies and documentaries, and cultural expositions among others, to support social fights.

In short, we can say that social movements are formed around individual and collective interests, through strategies, as in business or in a political campaign, in a rational interaction between actors that builds the identity and unity of the group (Tilly, 1985: 735-736). To reach their common goals, they mobilize resources that can be related to morals and legitimacy, material goods and activities, strategic networking and cultural frames, in short all that can help build a social cohesion around their causes. However, if that is in general the case with social movements what shared-values, in the specific case of climate change, bring divergent actors to come together for a common fight for environmental/climate justice?

V. SOCIAL COHESION ENVIRONMENTALISM

In this section of the article, I will evoke and develop the concept of SCE as an originality of the new social movements engaged in the fight for environmental justice in general and climate justice in particular. In fact, in my view SCE can be defined as an activist approach that attempts to create social mobilizations based on shared-values that cumulatively integrate demands for social justice and demands for environmental justice from historically divergent actors. In order to succeed in that fight, initiating movements try to gather around the same shared-values all social actors, irrespective of their origin and their basic ideology. Without pretending to be exhaustive, the following shared-values explain, in the form of unifying principles, what can be termed as SCE:

5.1 Principle of Unified-Integrality

The SCE is built on the idea that environmental issues go beyond the materiality vs post-materiality divide in social struggles. In fact, it goes beyond the traditional divides of old forms of social movements based on material demands to integrate the demands of new social movements supposed to be based on postmaterial values. The SCE demands integrate together environmental, social, labor, political, economic issues in a single fight. That is why their fights are not directed to sectorial specific changes, but to the overall system change. In short, even though the struggles take environmental or climate justice matters as points of departure, it includes other social struggles either for inclusive reasons, or simply because environmental issues are transversal and can be reported to any sector of human and non-human life. It is very close to the idea of integral ecology developed by Pope Francis in Laudate Si, and which focuses on the analysis and the fight against the current climate crisis from a holistic perspective. In fact for the Pope,

It cannot be emphasized enough how everything is interconnected. Time and space are not independent of one another, and not even atoms or subatomic particles can be considered in isolation. Just as the different aspects of the planet – physical, chemical and biological – are interrelated, so too living species are part of a network which we will never fully explore and understand. A good part of our genetic code is shared by many living beings. It follows that the fragmentation of knowledge and the isolation of bits of information can actually become a form of ignorance, unless they are integrated into a broader vision of reality (Pope Francis, 2015, number 138).

Nevertheless, even though the Pope uses a religious vocabulary, the reality he names 'integral ecology' has already been identified. In fact, according to many Indigenous cosmologies, nature is perceived as a whole, and their traditional cultures are based in worldviews that rarely put humans at the center of creation, but situate them within a web of life in which all entities, be they inanimate, plant, animal or natural, possessed a spiritual dimension of their own (Stonechild, retrieved on 11/02/2020). Species of animals and plants are siblings or close relatives of human communities among many Indigenous peoples and thus must be treated respectfully as they too have rights and needs (Kapyrka and Dockstator, 2012:101). Saint Francis of Assisi, far from any anthropomorphic representation of nature, embraces such relationship view when, in his famous Canticle of the Creatures he praises God for Brother Sun, Sister Moon and the stars, Brother Wind, Sister Water, Brother Fire, Sister Mother Earth, and Sister Bodily Death (Saint Francis quoted in Gatlif, 2012) among others.

The two above sets of visions (Christian and Indigenous) stress a conception that goes beyond the normative Western understanding of nature as an externality, or a "commodity to be exploited or owned", to include a spiritual relationship (Richardson, 2008; Cardinal, 2001; Verney, 2004), and an inalienable dimension of mutual respect (Steinhauer, 2002; Alfred, 2010; Kovach, 2013). The holistic, spiritual and reciprocal respect dimensions are key to Indigenous worldviews, and from their perspective defending nature is not simply a matter of protecting an externality, but defending an identity and securing self-survival; it is about defending an interrelated web-of-life that includes a divine-human-non-human beings. From that, it results that, in the new wave of climate protests, also evidenced by faith-inspired and indigenous worldview, fighting for climate change and for nature goes far beyond the materiality vs postmateriality divide to integrate all the dimensions into a single holistic struggle.

5.2 Principle of Social-Differential Collegiality

Building an influential social-differential collegiality through strategic networking, is fundamental for the success of social movements' activities. In fact, building a collegiality despite their differences allows social movements to create and manage relationships that render them more effective. Such collegiality building involves considering the place and role of each member within the group, taking into consideration power relations, as well as the strategies and expectations of each member of the group in the achievement of the common or shared goal (Buyse, 2003). In the current configuration of global climate governance dominated by the UN-led Stated-centered decision-making processes, techno-fixes, biomimicry and market-oriented solutions (Valentin, 2009; Kenfack, 2013; Kenfack, 2015; Kenfack, 2018;), building an effective and efficient grassroots block appears to be more than ever necessary for the survival and influential role of climate non-sovereign actors in general and climate justice movements in particular. Only such blocks could give them the power and influential voice needed to push forward the transition to a low carbon economy. It is only by building more strategic alliances that they will be capable of pushing decision-makers towards the desired direction. In this context, the social-differential collegiality refers to strategically built networks, understood as clusters of different kinds of actors who are linked together in political, social or economic life. Networks may be loosely structured but still capable of spreading information or engaging in collective action (Peterson, 2003:1). Those networks are the result of a more or less stable and non-hierarchical cooperation among Organizations that know and recognize themselves, negotiate, exchange resources and can exchange norms and interests (Le Galès and Thatcher, 1995). Within such networks acting parties or groups have the capacity to bargain over policy designs and details and therefore to determine the success or failures of public policies in a given sector (Peterson and Bomberg, 1999:8). So, in any action with a social, economic or political goal, the structure of networks operating in the policy sector determines, explains and predicts the outcomes (Peterson, 2003). In the paradigmatic case of the one million climate jobs campaign of South Africa, when it come to building a social-differential collegiality to fight climate change, the diversity of actors and participating organizations that join together to build a collegiality of action around the campaign is very visible and impressive, as the below categorization demonstrates.

Social and faith-based groups

1. The Abahlahi baseMjondolo.

1. The Alternative Information and Development Centre.

2. The Cooperative and Policy Alternative Centre.

4. The Democratic Left Front.

5. The Farmer Support Group UKZN.

6. The New Women's Movement.

7. The Progressive Youth Movement.

8. The Rosa Luxemburg Foundation.

9. The Rural People's Movement.

1. The Trust for Community Outreach and Education.

11. The Umphilo waManzi.

12. The Youth Agricultural Ambassadors.

1. The Southern African Faith Communities Environmental Initiative.

Environmental defence organisations

1. The 350.org

1. The Africa Centre for Biodiversity

3. The Earthlife Africa Cape Town

4. The Earthlife Africa Johannesburg

5. The Environmental Monitoring Group

6. The Geasphere

7. The GroundWork

1. The Institute for Zero Waste

9. The International Alliance on Natural Resources in Africa

10. The Oxfam Australia

11. The South Durban Community Environmental Alliance

12. The WWF

Labour and trade-unions movements

1. The Congress of South African Trade Unions [COSATU]

2. The Food and Allied Workers Union

3. The National Council of Trade Unions

4. The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa

5. The National Union of Mineworkers

6. The Public and Allied Workers Union of South Africa

7. The South African Municipal Workers' Union

8. The South African Transport and Allied Workers' Union

Universities and research institutions

1. The Civil Society Research and Support Collective

2. The University of Glasgow

1. The University of Cape Town

2. The University of KwaZulu-Natal: Farmer Support Group

3. The University of Stellenbosch: Sustainability Institute

4. The University of Witwatersrand: School of Economics and Business Sciences

5. The University of Witwatersrand: Society, Work and Development (Kenfack, 2018b:158-159)

In a completely different context, it is conscious of the importance of building a strategic collegial group despite their differences that Portuguese climate jobs campaigners, right from the beginning, gave an important place to the building and use of strategic networking. Campaigners believed that the government may listen to the demands of civil society, but at the same time it is currently trapped by corporations and market forces that limit its action toward energy transition. That is why it is important to build an opposing force, made up of a network of all social actors, to push governments to act in the right direction. That is why a climate justice activists group like Climáximo took the initiative of building a social-differential collegial network around the climate jobs campaign.

The major actors of such campaign can be classified in six categories as follow: 1) climate justice movements such as Climáximo in Lisbon (initiator of the campaign) and Colectivo Clíma in Porto; 2) trade unions such as the General Confederation of Portuguese Workers (Confederação Geral dos Trabalhadores Portugueses-CGTP), the teachers' union of the Lisbon region (Sindicato dos Professores da Grande Lisboa, SPGL) and the teachers' trade union of the north (Sindicato de Professores do Norte, SPN); 3) labour movements such as the Association for the Fight against Precarious Work (Precários Inflexíveis); 4) environmental NGOs like the national Environmental Action and Intervention Group (Grupo deAção e Intervenção Ambiental, GAIA); 5) local anti-exploration movements such Alentejo Livre Petroleo and Peniche Livre de Petroleo; and 6) faith-inspired movements such as the Juventude Operária Católica. (Kenfack, 2020)

The building of a collegiality is very strategic because, as a Climáximo and PI activist I interviewed stated, because the climate jobs campaign [...] can be easily explained and easily understood, and it brings new sets of alliances and new possibilities of alliances, and it is going to be the biggest environmental issue in Portugal since the 70s (Kenfack, 2018:219). Nevertheless, in their networking efforts, the activist movement is selective, and often avoids having close ties with fossil fuel corporations and any Organization with positions that campaigners consider doubtful. As the Precarios Inflexíveis activist I discussed with puts it, when I tried to understand the limited relation with Quercus, which is one of the biggest national environmental NGOs in the country:

Quercus has a lot of things and issues behind that we do not understand. We think they have funding from Gulbenkian, and we all know the role of Gulbenkian in oil exploration and exploitation. And we also have different points of view on a lot of things. Last time we invited them, nevertheless, to participate in some of our activities. That also goes with most environmental movements which, like them, have links with corporations and governments, and that does not give them the freedom to do certain things as freely as we do. [...] We avoid collaborating with Organizations that have link with the fossil fuel industry or with the government because we want to keep our freedom (Kenfack, 2018:219).

Such strategic coalition building and development of differential collegiality efforts are not limited to the South African and Portuguese climate jobs campaigns. Similar strategies are also found in other climate jobs campaigns around the world. For example in a campaign that was launched in Canada in 2009 under the initiative of the Green Economy Network [GEN], we find a collegiality made up of trade unions, environmental movements, foundations, students' movements, faith-based movements, Indigenous movements and research institutions (Green Economy Network, 2017; Kenfack, 2019). Such campaign, it should be noted, requests for the creation of climate jobs and the instauration of a new economy which is not fossil fuel dependent in Canada (Kenfack, 2018). The Norway's Bridge to the Future alliance is made up of "the Norwegian Union of Municipal and General Employees (Fagforbundet), the Norwegian Civil Service Union (NTL), the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions in Oslo (LO i Oslo), Friends of the Earth Norway (Naturvernforbundet), Future in our hands (Framtiden i våre hender), Greenpeace Norway, the Christian Network for Environment and Justice (Skaperverk og bærekraft), Concerned Scientists Norway, Parat, Young Friends of the Earth Norway/Nature and Youth (Natur og Ungdom), the Grandparents' Climate Campaign (Besteforeldrenes klimaaksjon), and the Campaign for the Welfare State (For Velferdsstaten)"(Bridge to the future, accessed on

20/08/2018, Kenfack, 2019). Such alliance requests for a just transition to a low carbon economy and the creation of climate-friendly jobs in Norway. The above new forms of environmentalism, I argue in article, cannot be reduced to the environmentalism of the poor, the popular environmentalism, the wilderness environmentalism as understood by Martinez-Alier (2002), nor to the working class environmentalism as defined by Barca (2012), neither to the post-materialism style of environmentalism as defended by developers of post-materialism, nor to the professional environmentalism outsourced to paid professionals belonging to environmental defense organizations among others. In reality, it is a form of environmentalism that includes and combines all those forms of environmentalisms as well as other forms of social justice struggles.

5.3 Principle of Commonality of Interests

The SCE is an inclusive social struggle that goes beyond the specific and partisan interests of social classes, driven by the value of commonality of interests. In fact, if from the postmaterialist standpoint environmentalism is a fight of old and new middle classes freed from material needs, if from the standpoint of labor and working class environmentalism it is the fight of workers, if from the standpoint of environmentalism of the poor it is the fight of subaltern classes both from the global North and global South, and if from the standpoint of popular and wilderness environmentalism it is the fight of all those who take nature as their place of survival, the SCE goes beyond those classes and social divides to create a dialogic communion among diverse interests and groups. In other words, SCE brings together all types of social actors, irrespective of their social status and origins to fight for the common good, for the protection of "our common home" in the words of Pope Francis (2015). Among those actors there are labor movements, students, civil servants, academics, environmental defense organizations, gender equality defense organizations, political entrepreneurs, religious leaders and individual activists, just to name a few. Those actors come from upper, middle and well as subaltern classes, and their struggles take place both in the global North and the global South. In short, we can say that the diversity and multiplicity of actors involved in the climate jobs campaign and to other climate mobilizations around the world demonstrates that the environmental crisis is becoming more and more a field of convergent efforts among multi-origins and multi-interests actors concerned with climate change related issues from their various standpoints. In other words, through the intertwining of various issues around the climate justice ideal, we are living in an era where the interrelation among the different socio-political and economic issues shows their relation to nature and struggles for the protection and preservation of nature. In fact:

A sense of deep communion with the rest of nature cannot be real if our hearts lack tenderness, compassion and concern for our fellow human beings. It is clearly inconsistent to combat trafficking in endangered species while remaining completely indifferent to human trafficking, unconcerned about the poor, or undertaking to destroy another human being deemed unwanted. This compromises the very meaning of our struggle for the sake of the environment. It is no coincidence that, in the canticle in which Saint Francis praises God for his creatures, he goes on to say: "Praised be you my Lord, through those who give pardon for your love". Everything is connected. Concern for the environment thus needs to be joined to a sincere love for our fellow human beings and an unwavering commitment to resolving the problems of society. (Pope Francis, 2015, Number 91)

The above vision brings forward the importance of inter-connecting other social struggles with the fight against climate change and for the preservation of nature. Humans and their societies are all part of nature, and fighting for the protection of nature equally entails fighting for the establishment of fairer and livable societies, through combined efforts and communions of different humans and social interests that, at the end of the day, are as well environmental interests. As Pope Francis (2015i, number 49) rightly continues: Today, however, we have to realize that a true ecological approach always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor. It is probably with the growing consciousness on the interconnectedness between the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor that many mobilizations, around the world are being developed, taking into account the environmental/climate-related commonalities of their various members.

5.4 Principle of Self-Identification with Nature

Why is it taking so long to believe that if we hurt nature, we hurt ourselves? We are not watching the world from without. We are not separate from it. (Davi Kopenawa, Yanomami leader [Quoted by Development and Peace-Caritas Canada, 2019:2])

One of the most important and transversal elements that characterize the different climate justice struggles around the world, and that is equally very present in the discourses of religious leaders and profoundly rooted in indigenous traditions worldviews and ways of life throughout the world, is the perception about the final beneficiaries of environmental protection and stewardship. In fact, according to all those constituencies, the first and final beneficiary of the climate fight is not nature as an externality, but humans, as alter-nature. using the words of Pope Francis to qualify their struggles, we can say that they are guided by that awareness of our responsibility that must drive each one of us to promote seriously a 'culture of care which permeates all society, care in relation to creation, but also for our neighbour, near or far in space and time (Pope Francis, 2016). The struggle for the protection of the environment is therefore nothing else than the struggle for our own survival and that of future generations. Nature does not need human protection. Nature has the capacity and an unmeasurable capacity of resilience that makes it adapt to new conditions after every great climatic variation as the history of the universe demonstrates. The concern today is related to the living conditions on earth and not necessarily to the survival of nature. In fact, with the enhancement of the climate crisis, we may reach a situation in which human, plant and animal life will be very complicated or even impossible on earth, but that will neither affect the very existence of the earth nor its adaptability or resilience capacities. It is in this sense that the climate justice activism perspective endorsed by climate jobs campaigns and other climate mobilizations goes beyond the mere defense of nature as an externality to include the self-identification of humans with nature being defended. Statements climate justice activists and sympathizers often use during their various campaigns and marches such as "we are not defending nature, we are nature defending itself", or "we are nature in self-defense" better translate their attachment to the principle of self-identification with nature in the context of climate justice struggles. In fact, when we speak of saving nature, the reality is that we want to save ourselves; it is our survival which is here at stake, and not that of nature. As one climate jobs campaigner from Portugal declared during the third national climate justice meeting held at the faculty of Science of the University of Lisbon, "nature has always witnessed hot and cold periods, at times leading to the disappearance of specific species, but nature has never been destroyed because of those climatic fluctuations." (February 11, 2018, personal record) The self-identification with nature, I argue, has the potential of giving a certain utilitarian value to climate justice struggles, and rendering it more understandable and acceptable. In fact, if climate justice defenders and activists limit themselves to the saving nature discourse without attaching any human dimension to the fight, their struggles will seem very distant from the daily struggles of humanity and will probably attract less people. On the contrary, by building their narratives around the salvation of humans, climate justice struggles can attract more sympathizers and broaden their scope of action.

VI. CONCLUSION

The purpose of this paper was, while drawing from the richness and limitations of the New Social Movements and Resource Mobilization theories, to postulate and develop the SCE theory as a conceptual framework that better renders account of the unifying narratives and shared interests bringing together historically divergent actors to fight in junction for climate justice. This analytical framework can also be defined as an activist methodical approach that attempts to create a non-violent contestation of the current social order, and as an influential movement trying to mainstream the human, social and justice dimensions in the current climate regime. In other words, this approach's ideal is that of integrating in a synergistically way the demands for social justice and the demands for environmental/climate justice in the new development models of the low/post-fossil fuel era. Such a framework is built on four basic principles: 1) The SCE goes beyond social struggles division between materiality and post-materiality, and integrates both material demands and post-material values (principle of integrality). 2) The SCE goes beyond partisan and class-based environmentalisms to incorporate everybody and every class in the fight (principle of social differential collegiality). 3) The SCE is an inclusive social struggle that goes beyond the specific and partisan interests of social classes to integrate the interests of everyone (principle of commonality of interests). 4) The SCE does not limit itself to defending nature as a place or space; it defends nature as a self-identity (principle of self-identification). The importance of this framework lies in the fact that it renders account of the shared-values that, in the climate changing context bring historically divergent actors to come together around the struggle for climate justice and just transition to a low/post carbon society.

Funding:

This work was generously supported, financially, by the Killam trust, through the Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Postdoctoral Fellowship, at the University of Alberta, and by the Queen Elizabeth Scholars programme through the "ecological economics, commons governance, and climate justice" project.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

All my gratitude goes to Pr. Laurie Adkin from the University of Alberta and Pr Ellie Perkins from York University for their constructive guidance and constant support. I am also very grateful to the referees and editors of this piece.