Activist or terrorist? Negotiating discourses of eco-terror in If a Tree Falls. Issue 1 (2nd January 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Olson, Jade
• Is Part Of: Applied environmental education and communication. Volume 17:Issue 1(2018)
• Page Start: 57
• Page End: 66
• Publication Date: 2018-01-02
• Subjects: Environmental education -- Periodicals; 363.70071
• DOI: 10.1080/1533015X.2017.1366879
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1533-015X

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Environmentalist voices like the Earth Liberation Front have been labeled "eco-terrorists." The 2011 documentary film If a Tree Falls explores how "eco-terrorism" troubles the unstable border between activism and terrorism. This essay offers a textual analysis of the film's negotiation of the activism/terrorism dichotomy, arguing that it both destabilizes and reifies dominant paradigms for understanding eco-revolutionary activism as environmental communication. I suggest that the film cultivates for its audiences a space of critical engagement with the complexities of such activist practices in the age of terror anxiety, contributing welcome nuance to the public conversation about radicalization in environmental activism.