I departed to this research with the curiosity to find out how the corporeal resistance of the climate justice movement Ende Gelände worked and what implications it had. While the role of social movements in the global climate governance has been studied widely (Bäckstrand et al.
2017; Sander 2017; McAdam 2017; Nulman 2015; Caniglia et al. 2015; Jamison 2010; Ford 2003), the corporeal techniques and relations structuring the practice of resistance have not received so much scholarly attention (cf. Väyrynen et. al 2017; Vinthagen 2015). I wanted to respond to this with my thesis by putting the protesting bodies of Ende Gelände in the centre of the analysis.
I have inquired into the possibilities of corporeal political contestation, and ultimately, transformation, in the times of climate turmoil on the level of the individual activists and the activist community. In the chapter 5, I examined the collective and micro layers of the resisting choreography. I asked how the choreography of resistance emerges; how it works, and what kind of relationalities it entails; and eventually, what the resisting choreography of Ende Gelände does.
To summarise, I traced that the resisting choreography emerges from the mobilised vulnerability of the activists accompanied by the pre-choreographies that prepare the bodies for resistance. The resistance itself was co-constituted through the interacting relations of care and violence. Furthermore, the resisting choreography transcended the event of protest through the relations of imagination that guided and motivated the activist bodies even in the midst of repression. The resistance created also corporeal repercussions in the activist bodies:
in many cases the powerlessness, tension or collapsing of the body parts caused by the embodiment of climate turmoil were transformed to grounding, alignment and active movement through the embodiment of the resistance experience.
I examined the collective layer of the resisting choreography from the perspectives of care, violence and imagination. The portraits of resistance underscored how the relations of care and violence were mutually co-constitutive of the resisting choreography. This interconnectedness was present for instance when the activists applied collective movement strategies of synchrony and dispersion in order to cope with unexpected violence from the part of the police officers. It was also present when the activists showed resilience in the face of repression through caring touch, attentive communication, and group chanting. Drawing on my own experience in the field, the actual presence and the looming possibility of violent repression was definitely making the relations of care even more poignant. The relations of violence
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emphasised also the significance of caring practices in the affinity groups of the activists I interviewed.
The activists exposed their bodies to the repression of the sovereign power by crossing the legal border (cf. Shinko 2010, 724). Consequently, the protesting bodies were often faced with violent grips, hitting and pushing from the side of the police officers especially when refusing to collaborate. Not to mention that bodies of the activists were not so massively protected as those of the police officers (see Foster 2003, 410). Therefore, the baston blows and the pepper spray were moments where the violence of the sovereign power was being enacted on the skin of the resisting activist, which underscored the material sphere of the resisting choreography49. The activists were nevertheless also resisting the violence done to their own bodies in the minutiae realms of possibility between deliberately exposing themselves to violence and taking care of each other (cf. Butler 2016, 24− 25). Moreover, the portraits of resistance emphasised also how the actions of political disobedience were transcended through the relations of imagination. Many of the activists I interviewed were referring to a vision of a society and human interconnection they would like to develop and experience while resisting. This did not mean that they would wholeheartedly believe that attaining such a society was possible, nevertheless, reaching for it as an embodied and lived experiment was still of central importance in the choreography of resistance. Referring to Emil’s words, once again, it was important for the Ende Gelände activists to experiment with new models of communication, collective organisation and being together, because climate change had to be solved anyway!
The third composition brought me to examine the micro layer of the resisting choreography from the perspective of the individual activists and their embodied responses to climate turmoil and resistance. The portraits on the body-based tasks underscored how climate turmoil has corporeal consequences to the activists’ bodies. These consequences manifested e.g. through feelings of powerlessness, collapsing body parts, rigidity and disorientation. However, also the practice of political disobedience in the actions of Ende Gelände had embodied consequences in the research participants. Xavier, Wilma and Indira felt the repercussion of the practiced
49 Since the late 1960s the violence and repression that the German police has been using against protesters seemed first to decline (Haunss & Ullrich 2013, 297). There was generally more acceptance for new forms of political participation through protests also among the police (ibid.). However, in the last years, Germany has seen a paradigm shift in this field following the increased repression and violence used by police against peaceful protesters of Stuttgart 2149, Occupy Movement, and in the case of this study, that of Ende Gelände (see Haunss & Ullrich 2013, 297).
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resistance in their bodies as movement, both sudden and growing in their extremities. In addition to that, they felt desire and ability to change the posture of their bodies and to engage in repetition of spirals, waves or sudden rolling on the ground. On the other hand, for Josefine, Alex, Robin and Bo the embodied repercussion of activism manifested as clear postural alignment of the spine, openness of the gaze and chest, and a stronger grounding and tonality in the muscles. Nevertheless, some research participants experienced also immobility and confusion like in the cases of Elmer and Emil.
On the micro layer, i.e. in the body-mind of an individual activist, the resisting choreography created a change from an embodiment of powerlessness to an embodiment of active agency.
Among the activists, this process of embodiment was not a linear, nor a homogenous process.
Nevertheless, it was taking place in all its messiness and complexity (cf. Attachment 16. & 17.).
By changing the body through personal and collective action, also the sense of agency of the activist was affected − even transformed. Drawing from the ontology of the body, the embodied experiences of resistance were also changing the mind of the activists. This resonates with Ann Cooper Albright’s (2018, 1) insight that "there is a deep interconnectedness between how we think about the world and how we move through it." The outcomes of the body-based task have illustrated, that this idea functions also to the other direction: That the way how we engage with the world through the movement of our bodies, changes the way how we think about the world, and eventually, how we act in it.
The examples that emerged from the portraits of resistance and from the body-based tasks emphasised, as well, that vulnerability is not antithetical to resistance, but rather an integral part of it (see Butler 2016, 24). This was especially present in the structures and caring communication of the affinity groups. For example, Elmer recalled that in his affinity group people encouraged each other to openly express their insecurities, to communicate their personal boundaries, and to act accordingly. This could mean not to expose oneself to the violent grips of the police in a clearing of a sit-in blockade, but to rather go quietly if the direct exposure did not feel right. Indira experienced something similar after seeing the brutality of the police forces when they were clearing the blockade. Consequently, she decided not to be pulled out of the sit-in protest with force, but to go quietly. In spite of that, she still felt that she could stand strong in her resisting agency. Moreover, the action logistics, distributing food and water to the activists in the actions, demonstrated how the needy and vulnerable bodies of the activists required sustenance while resisting.
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The abovementioned examples emphasise the double performativity of vulnerability in resistance. Following Butler (2016, 24) this implies “being exposed and agentic at the same time.” On the one hand, the protesting bodies of Ende Gelände were being acted upon by the sovereign power that was aiming at maintaining the status quo. On the other hand, the activists were simultaneously resisting these disciplining and repressive practices through embodied techniques of resistance that stemmed from their mobilised vulnerability (cf. Butler 2016, 12).
After having scrutinised what the resisting choreography did on the collective and micro layers, I proceeded to examine how the disobedient bodies of Ende Gelände embodied the political claim for climate justice on the structural layer of the choreography. In this thesis, I have argued that the protesting bodies of Ende Gelände demand an immediate coal phase-out by crossing the border of legality (cf. Moulin-Doos 2015, 31). Furthermore, I hold, that the resisting choreography of Ende Gelände is, as well, an attempt to make the German state responsible for its shortcomings in the field of climate pledges by exposing the concrete sites where the climate destruction takes place. Consequently, by intervening in the coal mine infrastructure, the resisting choreography of Ende Gelände questions the neutrality of lignite mining and repoliticises the climate politics of Germany.
In addition to disrupting the business-as-usual, the actions of Ende Gelände also enact the possibility of the coal phase-out and widen the imaginations of what is possible in the field of political citizenship. Ultimately, the resisting choreography of Ende Gelände makes a corporeal claim for climate justice by questioning the legitimation of lignite mining in the times of anthropogenic climate turmoil. In the previous chapter, I presented five elements of the structural layer of the resisting choreography that emerged from the oscillating relations of care, violence and imagination of the micro and collective layers of the choreography. These elements or acts, expose, disrupt, re-imagine, enact and claim, respond to the question of what does the resisting choreography of Ende Gelände do on the structural layer of the analysis. The combination of double exposure, disruption of the business-as-usual, re-imagination of the lignite mines and enactment of the possibility of coal phase-out materialised the political objectives of the Ende Gelände alliance and concretised their claim for climate justice. These elements, together with the minutiae relations of care, made the choreography of Ende Gelände to an embodiment of climate justice in the sites of climate destruction.
Climate turmoil is not merely an inter-state issue, rather it is an existential threat to most of the forms of life on earth. Resisting bodies of Ende Gelände matter because they illustrate the gap
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between climate pledges and (in)action by bringing the existential urgency of climate change back in.Furthermore, the protesting bodies shift the focus from abstract policy discourse back to the physical sites where the real climate destruction takes place. They also create new imaginative corporeal forms of citizenship through the practice of political disobedience.
Therefore, I argue that a deeper study of political disobedience in the climate justice movement widens our understanding on the changing roles of citizens in the era of worsening climate change. I claim that the protesting bodies are important, because they invite us to perceive the socio-political conditions of climate politics as relational, layered and urgent. In addition to disrupting the business-as-usual of climate inaction, the resisting choreography of Ende Gelände is at its best when cultivating practices of interdependence, mutual support and recognition of one’s own vulnerability. Furthermore, the caring knowledge embodied and transmitted through the resistance fosters new ways of organising and being together as citizens of a political community. This can support us in re-imagining why the struggle for climate justice is worthwhile.
On the one hand, the example of Ende Gelände emphasises the fragmentation of global climate governance and the distrust that the citizens experience towards the politicians when it comes to the implementation of the emission reduction goals on a national level (cf. Palmujoki 2013, 192). On the other hand, the resisting choreography of Ende Gelände is also an example of the diversification of climate governance (ibid.), as it invites new forms of political participation through corporeal practices of disobedience.
Examination of the resisting choreography of Ende Gelände has proven that we humans, as embodied beings, are able to find spaces and possibilities of resistance even in very constrained situations imposed on us by the sovereign power. Our sensing, acting and resisting bodies are never totally contained or governed. As our bodies are constantly existing in a state of becoming, this means that there is always space for change. Following the thought of Eeva Puumala (2013, 951), the international system is also in a constant state of becoming, and therefore vulnerable to the interventions of resisting bodies. I dare say that grass-root movements like Ende Gelände are going to play an important part in disrupting and transforming the course of the international climate politics by reintroducing the question of climate justice through their embodied presence. Sometimes bodies are indeed louder than words.
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