From Mindbombs to Firebombs: The Narrative Strategies of Radical Environmental Activism Documentaries

The article examines the narrative strategies of two documentary films that give insight into the direct-action campaigns of two radical environmental groups; Jerry Rothwell’s How to Change the World (2015) recounts the birth of Greenpeace and its development of “mindbomb” communication strategies. Marshall Curry’s If a Tree Falls (2011) chronicles the rise and fall of the Earth Liberation Front and its tactics of ecotage. Situating both films in the larger history of radical environmentalism in the United States, the article explores the affective side of their rhetoric on two levels: on the level of the activists’ own communication strategies and on the level of the films made about these activists and their strategies. It argues that making a documentary film about radical environmentalist groups raises moral questions for the filmmaker and that, each in his way, Rothwell and Curry have both made films that straddle the line between ostensible objectivity and sympathetic advocacy for the individuals they portray.

Rastafarianism in Bullet Tree Falls, Belize: Exploring the Effects of International Trends

In 1991, a group of Rastafarians in the village of Bullet Tree Falls, Belize, started out adhering to the principles of piety and protest that characterized the Rastafarians when began in Jamaica in the 1930s. After being Rastafarian for several years, village adherents gravitated to new values and lifestyles, not the protest and piety that kicked off the movement in Jamaica and Belize. The beginnings resembled a revitalization movement, an attempt at making a more satisfying culture. Yet over time, individual Rastafarians in Bullet Tree Falls sought material advantages, and the Rastafarians were flattered by the attention of tourists and others. Changes in the Rastafarians’ orientation and practices are examined as a consequence of global trends and local cultural influences. The article examines how international and local trends dissolved a revitalization movement.