Negotiating (activism) cultural differences: lessons from the FridaysForFuture’s transnational and local networks

Climate change has come to define the current generation of activists (Fisher, 2016; Hestres & Hopke, 2017), with social media being an integral part of this novel wave of mobilizations (Castells, 2011; Hopke & Hestres, 2018). Inspired by Greta Thunberg’s Friday school strikes, the FridaysForFuture (FFF) movement is at the forefront of this fight. As a transnational social movement, FFF’s organization is a complex network of national and local groups, which interact with each other via periodic video calls, meetings, and assemblies. Analyzing ethnographic data from a six-month participant observation (Emerson et al., 2007; Pink et al., 2016) of FFF-Rome and a three-day participant observation of FFF-Italy’s latest training event in Brescia, this contribution discusses: (RQ1) how social media facilitate interactions among culturally different FFF groups; and (RQ2) how this cultural diversity affects local FFF groups’ interactions with the local social movements’ field and, by extension, FFF’s local activism. Results’ thematic analysis (Guest et al., 2011) emphasizes social media’s role in enabling, coordinating, and facilitating FFF’s transnational network organization. It also highlights how FFF activists negotiate local values, needs, and practices with (inter)national strategies and goals (i.e. FFF-Italy localizes FFF’s global fight against fossil fuels via campaigns against Italy’s fossil fuel giant ENI). Findings suggest that (inter)national and local differences among FFF groups are connected to differences in activism cultures (Baumgarten et al., 2014; Jasper & Polletta, 2019), which affect FFF groups’ interactions with local movements. For example, FFF-Rome’s relations with the Roman student movement reflect FFF-Rome’s attempts to both embody FFF’s values and find common ground with Roman students (i.e. by choosing when to adopt or reject Roman activism practices) to join forces against climate change. The proposal thus raises questions about what happens when social media facilitate interactions and negotiations among different cultures of activism within transnational social movements, how this reflects on the local social movement field, and what this might mean for the future of activism in the network society.