Subverting Motherhood: Investigating the Mothers' Activism in Environmental Conflicts

Abstract

In recent decades, social movement scholars have paid significant attention to the study of local ecological conflicts, delving into various dimensions and actors involved in mobilization. However, the role of mothers' committees in such conflicts has consistently been underestimated, despite their pivotal role in shaping mobilization dynamics and triggering significant processes in both private and public spheres. To address this gap, the paper aims at shedding light on the mobilization of mothers' committees in local ecological conflicts by using a qualitative method to compare "Mamme NO TAP" in Apulia, "Mamme No PFAS" in Veneto and "Mamme NO MUOS" in Sicily. In critique of the essentialist interpretation of these mobilizations, this paper combines the approach of strategic essentialism with the literature on feminist political ecology in order to explore the arguments, the processes and the strategies that led these women to organise themselves into committees based on the motherhood identity. At the same time, this paper discusses how during the mobilization the traditional identity of mother is subverted towards a more feminist approach, by opening emancipatory spaces in the private and public sphere for all women. For this reason, these struggles need to be considered as forms of embodied feminism.