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Master's Thesis Exam: Louise Kobek Thorsen

Kratluskernes kognitive praksis: En udvikling af miljøbevægelser i 1980’ernes Danmark

Info about event

Time

Monday 29 January 2018,  at 13:15 - 14:30

Location

Øv. G32 (1532-318)

Abstract

With a cognitive approach to social movements, a history of two movement intellectuals in first half of the 1980’s environmental movement in Denmark will be told within this projekt. With focus on knowledge and its production, it will be the story of how two biologists, Per Christensen og Vagn Juhl Larsen, known as the ‘kratluskere’, initiated a line of pollution cases in press commentaries. It will be described how their activism was motivated by their scientific background, and a development will be traced from a heavy metals activism to the form of the ‘kratlusker’-activism. The form of their activism will be exemplified through the course of the concrete case, the Superfos-case, with weight on commentaries of the case in the press. Hereby, the criticism by the ‘kratluskere’ of the public sector’s environmental administration as lacking biological and technical knowledge will be evident. In an analysis of the cognitive practice of the ‘kratluskere’, their mediation strategies will be emphasised. A transformation of the cognitive practice of the ‘kratluskere’ to institutionalised forms of knowledge production will be discussed as processes of cultural appropriation. Hereby, the story of the ‘kratlusker’-activism will also be a story of how some questions regarding pollution prevention emerged in Denmark. Concluding, it will be proposed to emphasise the dimension of mediation and communication strategies in the cognitive approach to social movements.

Vejleder/supervisor: Kristian Hvidtfelt Nielsen