A Journey through a Collective Environmental Conscience Metanarrative: The Case of Goletta Verde

Abstract

This thesis presents some articulations of environmentalism in Italy. Using the Italian environmental association Legambiente as entry point, it explores how the vision of a collective environmental conscience is constructed, represented, claimed and contested in the 2013 edition of the association’s principal campaign, Goletta Verde. The integration of theoretical tools [narrative-networks (Lejano et al. 2013), matters of concern (Latour 2008), imagined audiences (Litt 2012) and performance and impression management (Goffman 1959)], and research methods [fieldwork, interviews, participant observation, and the use of extensive literature], reveals analytical findings divided in three parts - how the campaign narrative is constructed, what are some of the discontinuities encountered, and what are implications of the associative vision for environmentalism and its study by anthropologists.