I have always intended my research to be of more interest and use to activists than to anyone else. Nonetheless, I think my tendency in academic writing to criticize weaknesses in the climate movement is ultimately motivated by a desperate determination to collectively take our best shot at avoiding climatic disaster. Operating under those conditions, […]
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They’re not 100% finished, but tonight I was able to send 2 of my 4 core chapters to my third committee member. Some things which I am still looking for more evidence about: The salience of climate change as a political issue had risen before the divestment movement began in 2012 Climate change is especially […]
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Four substantive chapters make up the argument of my dissertation, covering metaphors or categories from the academic literature on contentious politics: the political opportunity structure where activists develop approaches to advance their goals; the mobilizing structures they use to choose priorities and make decisions; the repertoires of contentious actions they perform; and the framing which […]
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I sent the updated (v7) version of the mobilizing structures chapter late Friday night. The task due today is to review v6 of the repertoires chapter and comments from supervisors on v4 and then write the opening 3-4 pages for what will become the structure of the new chapter.
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Sydney Lang and Amanda Harvey-Sánchez have an article in the May/June issue of Briarpatch: Divestment and beyond.
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There ought to be a name for the experience, when involved in the long process of writing up a dissertation or scholarly book, of coming across a scholarly source and thinking: “Wow! I wish I had read this several years ago when it was published!” Going through such a document line-by-line in printout form while […]
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Due to an overwhelmingly stressful family situation, which kept me up all night Friday and Saturday with racing intrusive thoughts, I have deleted my WhatsApp account and disabled the phone and messaging features on my cell phone. I gave my committee a commitment that I would have a complete political opportunities chapter done this weekend […]
Amid all the struggle with trying to get my dissertation done, I have frequently thought about the sunk cost fallacy: basically the idea that because you have invested a lot in something, you need to keep going. It’s called a fallacy because we can’t change the past and need to decide whether any undertaking is […]
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Today I saw a Twitter post with some text that governments cut from the Summary for Policymakers from the 6th Assessment Report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC): B6.4. Factors limiting ambitious transformation include structural barriers, an incremental rather than systemic approach, lack of coordination, inertia, lock-in to infrastructure and assets, and […]
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