Season 5, Episode 16: New Researcher Spotlight—Britta Eklöf on the Challenges of Activism and Staying Involved

Written By Climate Change And Happiness
 

image credit | Anastasiya Badun

Season 5, Episode 16: New Researcher Spotlight—Britta Eklöf on the Challenges of Activism and Staying Involved

Ever wondered why some people burn out or quit activism despite caring deeply? Panu and Thomas spoke with Swedish Ph.D. researcher Britta Eklöf who explored this question. Many long-term activists face barriers like social disconnection, exhaustion, and doubts about their impact. Britta’s research shows these obstacles are interconnected, and that small changes can make a huge difference. Creating social support, clear roles, and space for emotions can boost resilience and keep activists involved. It’s not just about fighting for solutions, it’s about sustaining ourselves while doing it. Join us for the conversation. 

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Transcript

Transcript edited for clarity and brevity.

Thomas Doherty: Well hello, I'm Thomas Doherty.

Panu Pihkala: I am Panu Pihkala.

Doherty: Welcome to climate change and happiness. This is our podcast, a show for people around the globe who are thinking and feeling deeply about climate change and other environmental issues and political issues and social issues and technological issues. And we asked the provocative question, what does it mean to be happy in the modern world? And, you know, one way that people engage in express their values about nature and the natural world and human health is through activism and advocacy. And it's interesting to think about all the different life paths that people have, and also what brings people into groups and how that works in activist circles. And we have, we're lucky to have a guest with us today who's going to help us talk about that.

Britta Eklöf Yes, thank you. My name is Britta. I'm a clinical psychologist based in Stockholm in Sweden. I recently completed my PhD in environmental psychology in Trondheim, Norway. And I was lucky to have Panu Pihkala as the opponent of my thesis two months ago.

Doherty: Yeah, and we're really excited to have Britta here and she's worked with Panu and I found her research really interesting and it helped me to rethink some of my thoughts about environmental groups. So Panu, do you want to get us started?

Pihkala: Warmly welcome Britta, also on my behalf. Glad to continue the conversations. I first became aware of your work a couple of years ago at an environmental psychology conference in Aarhus, Denmark. So naming different Nordic countries. And I know that you have been living in Sweden, so that's already for Nordic countries. And I know that you have many things in your history related to environmentalism and I'd like to ask you to start by telling something about your journey towards where you are now. How did you end up being so heavily involved with environmental topics and psychology?

Eklöf :  Yeah, well. I remember, I mean, there are many starting points I could talk about, for me, watching the Al Gore's documentary, An Inconvenient Truth in my teenage years, that was a big eye-opener for me. But I didn't grow up in an environment where people talked a lot about environmental issues. So I didn't really have a language for that worry.

Yeah, for any feelings about climate, really. And my first political awakening was more focused on gender equality and global justice. So in my 20s, I was more focused on that. But the information about climate crisis and the concern was really just piling up inside of me. And I was good at compartmentalizing my climate anxiety for sure. Just silently saying to myself, just don't look that direction basically. But then Greta Thunberg appeared. And soon after I heard about the Extinction Rebellion and I saw an announcement on Facebook about introductory lecture in my city and I decided to go with my friend. And I remember clearly that I had a huge resistance before going. And I was very close to cancelling last minute. But I got on my bike and I was 10 minutes late. But that meeting was transformative. I learned a lot about the climate crisis and also about democracy, civil resistance and how social movements work.

Pihkala: Mm-hmm.

Doherty: Mm-hmm.

Eklöf : So that was my first entry point to activism basically. then shortly thereafter the COVID-19 pandemic hit and I isolated. I was just focused on my day-to-day job.

Pihkala: Mm-hmm.

Eklof: But I clearly got mobilized during that meeting. And during the pandemic also my work contract ended and I started applying for PhD positions in environmental psychology. And I was fortunate to be accepted to one and was also lucky to be given the opportunity to study activism.

And yeah, just to round up, at that point, activism was starting to receive more attention in social and psychological research, but it was mostly focused on why people join climate social movements, and much less on what happens after they join. So, yeah, I wanted to conduct research that would hopefully be useful for activists themselves and therefore decided to study what happens after engagement, what enables long-term engagement and also what leads some people to quit and leave their activism.

Doherty:  That's great. Panu, was your take? What did you learn from the, as you were observing the dissertation process? What were the insights that you gained?

Pihkala: Yes, thanks Britta for telling about that. I totally agree that research on disengagement from environmental activism is very rare. In this podcast, we've had conversations with some scholars who have worked more on how people join environmental movements or become more environmentally aware. The work of Luis Chavala for example has been influential in that regard and listeners you can find that episode online also and having history with studies of religion and ecology I found it amusing that the word epiphany is used in some related research so people having environmental epiphanies and that the word comes heavily from religious circles having a some kind of revelation and so it links.

Eklöf : Yeah.

Doherty: Yeah, epiphany, yeah.

Pihkala: Also, know, North American roots of environmentalism and people having deeply formative experiences outdoors, but that can happen also via documentaries, for example. You mentioned Al Gore's documentary and there's several pieces of research and testimony from people all around the world that it's really been influential for many people's lives and being inspired by other people is a major thing here also.

And that leads to the topic of social dynamics more broadly. And I think that in your research there's very interesting content about the dynamics of environmental movements. And of course there's quite special things going on in the 2010s. Let me say that again. And of course there's some really special things going on in the 2020s with the COVID-19 pandemic which made on the street activities more difficult. And in relation to the culture of new environmental movements such as extinction rebellion that you studied a lot in Sweden. And it's easy to see some very good things in their culture, for example, attention to well-being and emotions and many of the topics we discuss in this podcast.

But also there is no hierarchy officially, but you know, in human groups there tends to develop hierarchy even though people say that there is none. So there's some sort of universal dynamics I see discussed in your studies but also some quite special themes from the 2020s and there's many directions to go from here but if you have some thoughts directly emerging from this, Britta, please go ahead.

Doherty: Mm-hmm.

Eklöf : No, I'm happy to have you lead the conversation what the next direction should be.

Pihkala: Hehehe.

Doherty: Okay, yeah. Well, let me let me jump in. I think this is this is fascinating. So you know, yes, what draws people into groups, and this role of an epiphany or a wake up call is something that I've observed many times in my life. And then many of our guests have a heavy salient experience or learning. And I know

Eklöf : No.

Doherty: Britta, appreciated your research because it reminded me of older research that I had read from the US, that people get drawn into environmental action through factors like learning something, or they already have pre-existing expertise, or they're placed in a position of leadership where then they learn something. They join a committee in their town or something like that, and it puts them in a leadership position.

What I found inspiring was that there was no one path. Sometimes someone's a pre-existing expert and gets drawn in to an issue. Sometimes someone just as a common citizen who learned something like an environmental issue in their town. Many famous environmentalists started just as regular people. And then of course there's that, there's the experience of just joining some committee or taking leadership and then suddenly you have to make decisions for your family or community which then puts you into an action position so that that I found interesting but it seems that things also are less simple now because of social media and because of technology and post covid so what you know what were you finding in your research about both what drew people in and then what what was actually causing them to disengage.

Eklöf : Yeah, well, yeah, I don't write a lot about what drew people in in my research, but for sure I discussed that in my interviews. I'm not sure if I said it, but I interviewed Swedish activists in the Extinction Rebellion Movement in Sweden, and both current activists and former activists.

Doherty: Yeah.

Eklöf : But yeah, they mentioned some kind of epiphany moment, most of them, and then also a process of anxiety and information accumulating within, and then some kind of informational tipping points almost. And then also being offered somehow a hand that drew them into the movement. So it was often through some kind of social connection. A partner or a friend that said, let's go to this meeting. And it was almost the same for me when I went to that lecture with them. But then, yeah. What's happened then when they joined? Many things, of course.

Doherty: Mm-hmm, Yeah.

Eklof: So in my research, I write about facilitators, things, factors that help them stay engaged. And I also write about barriers that were perceived by both current activists and dropouts. But for the dropouts, it was the lack of facilitating factors that could buffer these barriers or just facing too many barriers that made them eventually quit. And yeah, I can mention them briefly now, and then we can jump into one or many later. Yeah. Let's start with the barriers, actually. They are all interconnected, the facilitators and the barriers. But the first barrier mentioned was lack of social connections in the group or not finding one's role in the group. I'm going to keep it short now and just go through them.

So the first one was lack of social connections in the group. The second one, doubting that the strategy and the actions would have an impact. Third, conflicts or disagreements with the group, The fourth, exhaustion. And it could be related to both the activism itself, but also stress in private life. And the fifth one, difficulties with this type of non-hierarchical organization that Extinction Rebellion is, such as unclear leadership roles or decision-making procedures that are perceived unfair and so on. Yeah, guess had I done the interviews today, I think some activists and dropouts would probably also talk about police repression.

Doherty: Mm-hmm.

Eklöf : That was not a big theme in my interviews conducted back in 2020. But yeah, it has increased since then.

Pihkala: Yeah, thanks for telling a summary of those topics and recent episode of our podcast deals with politics of repression against environmental activists. So listeners, you can find more discussion of that. And actually in Trondheim, when we met with Britta two months ago, we also discussed that outside the main content of the dissertation. The second opponent was Marlis Wullenkord, who has done climate anxiety research in Germany and many kinds of environmental psychology research. So I really enjoyed the good conversations we had and I'm not going to go much into academic culture now, but you know, a dissertation event is the sort of culmination test of your PhD years and there's different cultures in relation to that. A sort of old power hierarchy culture would be that the opponents try to put the defendant into a small position. But we've been wanting to practice what might be called a more feminist approach to science and communication and academic relations where it's more discussion and learning together. And at best, and including my experience in Trondheim, is that everybody can learn if there's that kind of attitude. But also having that history means that I've been reading Britta's work in detail. So I know a lot about that content. those five barriers that you mentioned. Thomas, what's on your mind when listening to those?

Doherty:  Yeah, it's interesting. I've been trying to compare the more modern extinction rebellion experience with what I know of older environmental. mean, environmental groups have been around for generations now. And it does seem to me all of these barriers existed, say, 20 years ago in organizations, know, people being different unless it was a local group where people came from the same place, but any kind of national level group, people would be different. They would disagree. There's always doubts about impact and, but I think everything has been amplified. I mean, as we talk, it's really interesting because when I look at the research from the nineties, and early two thousands, people didn't talk about anxiety because eco anxiety was not surfaced as an issue.

Eklöf : Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Doherty: And so environmentalists didn't talk about feeling anxious. In fact, I think there was more of a sense that they were healthy and they were protecting the earth. So was actually the opposite of anxiety, but we live in different times. So I think all of these factors are amplified by technology, the weight of information, the instantaneous communication.

Eklöf : Right, yeah.

Doherty: people on their screens, social media, which exacerbates all kinds of interpersonal insecurities and relationship issues. So it does seem like a really high stakes. And of course, the stakes of climate change are much higher now. And people have experienced disasters. They have experienced floods, smoke. So we, know, it's like a kettle on a stove that's been turned up to a boil. The same ingredients, I think, where they have been there forever.

Eklöf : Yes. Yes.

Doherty: environmental groups have always been plagued by having charismatic founders that then are difficult to work with and things like that. That's forever. But now, now it's all amplified. what did you find that? How are people addressing this kind of new metaphor, the boiling pot of environmental work? Yeah.

Eklöf : Yeah, in different ways. In my analysis, I write about how people are driven by different motivations. And for people that are engaging because they want to have an impact and they want to have an impact fast, they have these instrumental motivations. For them, that is their main way to deal with it. And if they feel then that the strategy is inefficient, ineffective, yeah, thank you, that was a reason for them to disengage. And then we have another category that appreciated the social context, they found new friends maybe in the movement, and also appreciated that new type of social context that allowed them to share their climate's and validated their concerns and also having those emotions mirrored by others. For them, just being in that social context was another way to, or how to say, another coping aspect.

Doherty: Mm-hmm.

Eklöf :  Did I answer your question?

Doherty: Yeah, yeah, I think so. And I think it's great. mean, listeners, you can think about this yourself, but I know I, I like to, I see myself as a pragmatist. So if I'm working in a group, I want to make sure that we know what we're doing and, and, you know, we're going to have a, we're going to have an impact.

Or, you know, I flipped to the validation side, you know, where I said, impacts difficult, we might not have an impact at all. It might fail, but that's okay because we must try our values and we must do what we can do. this totally makes sense. So essentially, I think people become more savvy about these internal factors. I'm thinking of like meaning focus coping versus action and emotional focus coping and all these kinds of things. So it seems like there's a there's some sort of effective groups are able to recognize the needs of the individual person, their self, their, their need for support, their need for meaning. Yeah.

Eklöf : Right. I write about also how I write about that in terms of recommendations, a recommendation for organizer that it's good to be aware that people are driven by different motivation and also need different coping aspects. Because in my interviews, I find that it could be a source of conflict actually, when some people were more focused on, they wanted to spend time planning action and discussing strategy. And then we had another click of people in the group wanted to discuss their emotions and using the time and space for therapeutic reasons kind of. And that could be a source of conflict. The ideal case, I guess, would be that the group can acknowledge all these different needs and wishes. And yeah, acknowledge them, talk about them, and solve them collectively maybe.

Doherty: Mm-hmm.

Pihkala: Yeah, there may be changes in the organization or network. And while in Norway, I was talking with some people who are active in Extinction Rebellion Norway, and I heard that they had actually appointed facilitators. So they had switched to light hierarchy instead of no hierarchy at all. And then some people take more power and others are annoyed and those kinds of dynamics.

Doherty: Mm-hmm.

Pihkala: And you can, if people listen to me, you can hear that I'm fond of commonly set rules around hierarchy and power. I don't believe that in the long run it functions without having that sometimes difficult discussion that who is using power and just pretending that everybody has equal power. I don't think that works and that has some links to some earlier research and philosophy also.

Doherty: Mm-hmm.

Eklöf : Yeah, a note on that, maybe a little bit in defense of Extinction Rebellion. But I had one participant, I'm quoting her now saying that Extinction Rebellion was not built as a organization that was going to last for many years. It was built with the goal of mass mobilization and just spreading as fast as possible. And then I think it is an effective way to

have many action and many things happen quickly to just basically allow people to do whatever they want. They don't need a particular meeting and a voting system in place first. So I think it's effective in that sense. But in the long run, problems might arise with that kind of organization flat non-hierarchical structure.

Doherty: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Pihkala: Yeah, thanks for bringing that up. totally agree. And after all, the amount of action and attention that Extinction Rebellion was able to generate in just a couple of years was unprecedented in environmental activism. And then who knows what might have happened with the new wave of climate activism without the COVID-19 pandemic. So that was a big blow to many things. Then we could go also into activist life cycles. Often there's different age groups where people more probably turn to activism, like when you're a student or then when you're nearing the end of your working life and you have more social freedom and that sort of thing. And also during the COVID-19 years, many young activists of the new climate movement, you know, decided that they have to get places where they can study and try to get some jobs and some income in societies where there is less jobs for young people, partly because of technologization and AI lately and so on. So many things are intertwined here. But moving towards the end of our time, time flies so fast when having these conversations. It would be really nice to hear more about yourrecommendations based on your research about how to deal with these barriers constructively. You said already something about it but I noticed more.

Eklöf : Yeah, thank you for asking. So we spoke briefly about the role of the social context and that can be supported by giving newcomers or long-term activists opportunities to engage with different levels of intensity and workload basically, so that they can switch from roles depending on where they are in life. Also, roles, like knowing one's place in the group is very psychologically soothing. And also strengthening social bonds through opportunities to socialize between actions or strategy work, yeah, just relaxed opportunities to socialize basically. Also, you know, having procedures for conflict resolution in place, and as we were briefly talking about now, also frameworks for decision making, some kind of structure for that.

Doherty: Mm-hmm.

Eklöf : So that's the social recommendations. Also, I mentioned the barrier being exhausted from overwork. So that can be prevented through fostering open conversations about it. And encourage people to share when they feel overworked and encourage people to ask for help if they are overworked. So normalize that kind of.

Doherty: Mm-hmm.

Eklöf : And then I also mentioned efficacy doubts as a barrier. And that can be. How do you say? You can deal with that through also offering discussions about different ways to think about strategy and impact. We didn't have time to talk about that, but there are many ways to think about impact, no long-term impact, short-term, different outputs to focus on, et cetera. So just to inform activists about that basically.

Doherty: Yeah, yeah, this is great. I think, you know, what we can do today is is for listeners just raise these things because these are all things you're going to experience in a group. You know, are we really making a difference? What should we be doing? A word that you didn't use, which I've what I've heard, which I've heard from, especially in young environmentalists here, like in the sunrise movement is dealing with interpersonal drama, they would say, which is basically kind of individual egos, individual identity processes, people being sensitive, people being young, different levels of experience, life experience in a group, and also understanding of the issues. So it is challenging because more people are doing environmental work now than ever before, and more different kinds of people.

Eklöf : Mmm.

Doherty: the old days where there was an environmental scientist who started a group and everybody just listened to the him or her and followed orders and was sort of like in a in a military band that doesn't exist anymore. So we need much more like I think the takeaway is more flexibility and recognizing the human factors I think is a good way to think about it.

Yeah. And we're going to have links to Britta's papers and things in our show notes. And this is really good for activists and colleagues like in Climate Emergency Fund and people that we know here in the US that are doing, you know, good work on social and social action. So Britta, where's the rest of your evening going here now that we're wrapping up?

Eklöf : I'm actually gonna go downtown and have a glass of champagne actually because we're celebrating a friend who signed a book contract. Yes, and I guess also celebrating my thesis defense.

Doherty: Great, yeah. You didn't mention that, but celebrating victories, small victories is very important to coping as well. So those moments are key. Yeah, so congratulations. Yeah, to you and your friend. Yeah.

Eklöf : Right, yes. Yeah, yes. What are you going to do?

Doherty: I'm just starting my day. I'm redoing my website and I am working on talking to clients and talking to a colleague in Italy about mental health diagnosis and climate change.

Pihkala: Yeah, and it's 7 p.m. in Finland now. I'm gonna take a short walk before having a sauna. listeners of this podcast over the years, because we usually record this time Thomas' morning and my evening. That sounds like a regular thing, which is very true for Finland. Thanks Britta for joining us. It's been delightful to talk about these things.

Eklöf : Good stuff. Thanks. Thank you for having me. I enjoyed the conversation. And nice meeting you both.

Doherty: Yes, thanks and listeners you can learn more or find us at climatechangeandhappiness.com and take care of yourself as you're doing all of your good work in the world and everyone be well.

 
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Season 5, Episode 15: A Journey around the Planet (Without Flying) With Thor Pedersen