The cultural politics of eco-shaming

Abstract

In the face of deepening changes in our socio-environments, understanding how people socially and politically engage with, and disengage from, socio-environmental changes has become a major concern. Eco-shaming has recently emerged as a way of apparent engagement with the environment. Therefore, eco-shaming–shaming on environmental grounds–is analyzed as a cultural politics of the environment. First, we identify five different eco-shaming patterns, exposing their heterogeneity. Second, eco-shaming is discussed as to how it embodies a technique of governing, an affective politics acting on identities, and a form of resistance against dominant norms to demonstrate its function as a cultural politics of the environment. An analysis of eco-shaming statements in the media, policy, and advocacy field in Belgium exposes eco-shaming as an ambiguous, political, and contested way in which not only environmental engagement but also disengagement is continuously shaped and negotiated.