Political Economy Students' Journal

Introduction

In September 2024, three environmental protesters threw soup at Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers 1888 and Sunflowers 1889 paintings in the National Gallery in central London, then proceeded to glue their hands to the gallery walls. (Rufo, 2024) They were then arrested on suspicion of criminal damage. The protestors were members of Just Stop Oil, a group which defines themselves as “a nonviolent civil resistance group” demanding an end to fossil fuel use by 2030. (Just Stop Oil, n.d.)

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Indeed, the climate crisis is among the most significant events of our time. The Copernicus Climate Change Service (2025) cited 2024 as the “warmest year on record globally and the first calendar year that the average global temperature exceeded 1.5°C above its pre-industrial level.” In response, groups across the world– from grassroots activists to institution-led reformists – have emerged to push for solutions to climate change. Among these, socially disruptive groups like Just Stop Oil have garnered significant attention through their strategy of civil disobedience and disruption. While these actions have confronted public attitudes to climate change, they have drawn criticism for their perceived performativity and limited political efficacy.

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This essay will utilise the sociological theories of Pierre Bourdieu – namely, habitus, field, and capital – to analyse the broader climate justice movement and the actions of groups such as Just Stop Oil. By situating this movement within a Bourdieuian framework, it is possible to understand how class dynamics influence participation, behaviour, and outcomes. Put simply, perceptions of agency are informed by an individualʼs habitus which, in turn, affects individual behaviour in the environmental field. Resituating Bourdieuʼs back into the discussion, it will show that the climate movement is led by middle-class factions, which inadvertently reproduces class inequalities and fails to mobilize cross-class coalitions essential for systemic change.

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The Contemporary Climate Movement

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Just Stop Oil is representative of a new wave in the climate change movement, evolving its strategies from traditional activism to disruptive symbolic protests. (Buzogány & Scherhaufer, 2023) The group was formed in response to the UKʼs fossil fuel policies, employing high-profile stunts to draw media attention. Initially a vehicle for more traditional environmental protest such as occupying oil terminals, the group soon turned to more socially disruptive tactics designed to confront the public. Some of their protests have included vandalising artworks, blocking motorways and disrupting sports events. However, while these tactics succeed in forcing discourse, they raise questions about their inclusivity, strategy, and ultimate impact.

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The broader climate movement, including Fridays for Future and Extinction Rebellion, reflects similar trends. In lieu of traditional political participation, there is a move towards political action outside of traditional methods. This movement began in late 2018, most notably with Fridays for Future and Extinction Rebellion. Greta Thunbergʼs Fridays for Future protest started when she skipped school to protest the Swedish parliament's inaction on climate

 

change, eventually gaining exponential support with the Global Week for Future one year later mobilising an estimated six million protesters. Shortly after Greta Thunbergʼs first protest, in October, 2018, Extinction Rebellion posted the Declaration of Rebellion against the UK Government. Like Just Stop Oil, Extinction Rebellion employs radical tactics to raise awareness for climate change and force government action.

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These movements often attract middle-class, educated participants who leverage their resources to advocate for change. This class-based dynamic influences not only the tactics employed but also the framing of environmental issues, often alienating marginalized groups most affected by climate change. Understanding these patterns requires delving into Bourdieuʼs sociological concepts

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Bourdieu's Social Structure - Habitus, Field and Capital

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Pierre Bourdieuʼs work provides a lens to examine how social structures shape individual behavior and collective action. Bourdieu is not concerned with a closed concept of society, instead he is concerned with understanding the social space where power is configured. (Bourdieu, 1984) He interpreted social processes as informed by a dialectical relationship between an “objective systems of positions and subjective bundles of dispositions deposited in agents,” (Waquant, 2005) – namely, between the ʻfieldʼ and the ʻhabitusʼ. Therefore, social relations can be seen as a set of social ʻfieldsʼ that can be compared to “a game… although not the product of a deliberate act of creation.” (Bordieu & Wacquant, 1992) These fields are “characterised by the regularised, institutionalised unequal positions of social agents and, crucially, by competitive relations or ʻstrugglesʼ within them.” (Hastings, 2015) Therefore, it is the struggle within these social spaces for resources that reproduces social class inequalities. Developing the concepts of habitus, field, and capital further, it will be possible to offer a more nuanced understanding of the dynamics at play within the climate movement.

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Habitus

Bourdieu defines habitus as the dispositions and preferences individuals acquire through their upbringing and socialization. Shaping perceptions, behaviors, and the strategies individuals use to navigate society – defined as “a way of being, a habitual state … and, in particular, a predisposition, tendency, propensity or inclination.” (Bordieu, 2002) These differences in habitus result in distinctions in taste and ways of acting, speaking, and thinking; it is “internalised and converted into a disposition that generates meaningful practices.” (Hastings, 2015) Bourdieu (1990) describes it as “embodied history, internalised as second nature and so forgotten as history.” Thus, embodied distinctions of class are carried and utilised into other fields. That is not, however, to say that individuals lack agency and their positions within the field are predetermined; instead, actors with a stronger sense of the ʻrules of the gameʼ are able to make it function to their advantage as they can “transform, partially or completely, the immanent rules of the game.” (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992)

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Field

An individualʼs habitus presents itself in society through the social field. This can be defined as the social space in which individuals compete over finite resources and position themselves relative to others. (Lane, 2000) The strategies of competition, the rules of the game, are implicit and learnt over time, while the individualʼs practices are the consequence of “their habitus and cultural capital interacting within the context of a given field.” (Edgerton, 2014) Each of the fields an actor positions themselves in operates according to its own rules; however, crucially, fields overlap and succeeding in one social field can lead to success in another field. (Bourdieu, 1977) For example, a strong education can lead to success in the economic field as they may get higher income employment.

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Capital

The position at which an individual enters a particular field is contingent on the capital resources they possess; split between economic, cultural, social, and symbolic capital. The dominance of a particular social class is not merely related to economic power, but also through a multitude of social, cultural, and symbolic indicators. (Bourdieu, 1977) In this way, it is possible to broaden the class debate beyond economic resources to include more intangible forms of resources. Of particular interest to climate change mobilisation are cultural and social capital.

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• including knowing the ʻrules of the game. ʼ Thus, it represents the specific logic of a field. (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992) For instance, protesters with advanced degrees or familiarity with climate science have an advantage in shaping movement strategies and public discourse.

• Social capital encompasses networks and relationships that facilitate movement in the field. Put in more concrete terms, it is the “resources and networks of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition.” (Husu, 2012)

• Symbolic capital pertains to prestige, legitimacy, or recognition of an individual.(Husu, 2012) In this way, building from social and cultural capital resources, it can amplify an individualʼs influence.

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These forms of capital are unequally distributed between the privileging middle-class participants and marginalizing others. As all fields are contained within the dominant field of power, social hierarchy is structured around both the distribution of economic capital and the distribution of cultural capital. (Edgerton, 2014) Thus, the reproduction of class society, the unequal distribution of capital among actors means that certain individuals are able to leverage their capital resources to advance within a field. This inequality becomes apparent in the climate movement’s composition and tactics.

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Bridging Middle-Class Social Movements and Bourdieuian Analysis

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Situating Just Stop Oil in the broader context of the contemporary climate justice movement, it is possible to apply Bourdieuʼs analysis and see how that economic, social, and cultural capital are the drivers of political participation and, therefore, further our understanding of social movements. It becomes apparent that, as Orchowska (2023) argues, political participation is directed by capital resources; that there is “an interconnectedness of social status, financial resources, social networks, and cultural competences behind the demands of urban movements.”

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Combining theories of class and social movements reveals they are formulated under similar circumstances. Taking Italian sociologist Mario Dianiʼs definition of social movements, they can be defined as “networks of informal interactions between a plurality of individuals, groups and/or organisations, engaged in political or cultural conflicts, based on shared collective identities.” (Diani, 1992) As oppositional conflict is the defining focus of a social movement, its actors engage in a process whereby they “recognise themselves – and are recognised by other actors – as broader groupings, and develop emotional attachments to them.” (della Porta & Diani, 2006)

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This can be directly related to the definition of class that Bourdieu offers: in sum, “constructed classes can be characterized in a certain way as sets of agents who, by virtue of the fact that they occupy similar positions in social space, are subject to similar conditions of existence and conditioning factors and, as a result, are endowed with similar dispositions which prompt them to develop similar practices.” (Bourdieu, 1987) Thus, when social movements are situated within Bourdieu's theory, it is possible to bound their collective demands within a more holistic view of social class reproduction.

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These dispositions and practices manifest themselves through the utilisation of forms of capital. As the middle-class are “most ambiguously located in the social structure,” (Bourdieu, 1984) they are alienated from both poles of class distinction and are, thus, in a constant search for authenticity. While they may not possess significant economic resources, these middle-class groupings have cultural capital which they can leverage. Ultimately, we will see that the middle-class can utilise their habitus to be disproportionately represented in the climate change movement. Capital resources allow the middle-class “familiarity with and access to the legitimate, dominating culture,” facilitating their domination over the environmental field and maintaining their relative positions of power through social reproduction.

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Building a Habitus

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Middle-class capital resources manifest in tangible ways, building a unique and definable habitus within the environmental movement. While it may be difficult to position climate protesters absolutely within a class, one potential inference that can be made is to analyse protesters levels of educational attainment. Research consistently shows that environmental activism is disproportionately led by middle-class individuals with higher educational attainment.

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For example, despite their ideals to create a cross-class coalition, most protesters of the Fridays after Future movement have (parents with) university degrees. (de Moor, 2020) This is demonstrative of the long-standing correlation drawn between education and political participation in sociological research, whereby early investment in education leads to improved civic capacities and engagement with political life. (Becchetti, Solferino & Tessitore, 2016) This is demonstrated by Bovens and Willeʼs (2010) study on political participation in the Netherlands, where they find that “the well-educated currently comprise less than a third of the population, yet they dominate every political venue in the Netherlands.”

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This relationship between education and political participation is explained by Verba, Schlozman, and Brady (1995) when they say, “Education enhances participation more or less directly by developing skills that are relevant to politics – the ability to speak and write, the knowledge of how to cope in an organizational setting.” To reframe this argument, it could be said that education is an arena where individuals develop their habitus or an understanding of the ʻrules of the gameʼ.

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It is important to note that, although it impacts political participation, education itself is not the primary motivating factor. Instead, education can be seen as representative of pre-adult experiences and influences. As Persson (2013) puts it, “Education works as a proxy for factors such as family socio-economic status, the political socialization in the home environment and personal characteristics such as cognitive ability.” Therefore, education and its proxies equip individuals with the skills necessary for political engagement, making it a significant factor in political participation.

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In sum, middle-class activists are more likely to understand the underlying logic of the environmental fields, thus enabling them to navigate these spaces effectively. This belief is elucidated by Kaçani et al. (2024), who says, “Communities rich in social capital tend to exhibit higher levels of collective action and cooperation, enabling the dissemination of pro-environmental norms.” Once they do engage, these individuals continue to operate within their habitus and are more likely to challenge the system on terms that they themselves understand.

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Indeed, in reference to an individual's cultural capital influencing their political participation, Walgrave and Wouters (2022) research demonstrates that a personʼs social network reinforces their participation. Further, people tend to recruit like-minded others who they believe will respond positively to the invitation. (Klandermans, 2002) This theory is realised in de Moorʼs (2020) data on participation in 19 Friday for Futures protests across Europe, showing that almost 70% of respondents were recruited by those with whom they have existing social ties. This would seem to prove Bourdieu's idea of the habitus and the insularity of the climate movement.

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Occupying the Field

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With a clearly defined habitus, middle-class activists, with their greater access to education, cultural capital, and social networks, shape the environmental field towards their own ends. Rather than material conditions necessitating the need for protest, the inverse is true: political and economic development provides these individuals with the resources to express their own political demands. (Dalton, van Sickle & Weldon, 2009) Therefore, it is social class reproduction that drives “the social visions and mean-making processes of activists.” (Orchowska, 2023) As such, activists will put demands on the state to make changes instead of advocating for radical change itself.

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The middle class are likely to have a clear conception of the legitimacy of the state and put trust in the government intervention in improving issues. (Harrits, 2005) In a study of Fridays for Future protesters, della Porta and Portos (2021) identified the link between individuals' social class identification and their likelihood in trusting political institutions to bring about necessary change. As cultural capital provides the middle-class the sense of being entitled to take political positions, (Orchowska, 2023) their over-representation in the field shapes the movementʼs goals, strategies, and framing to reactionary ends

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While groups like Just Stop Oil present themselves as a radical movement of civil disobedience, its goals are abstract. The movement is avowedly apolitical; instead, they frame the climate debate in terms of a lost future. This marks a change from protest over material conditions to post-material protest. This abstraction is exemplified in the Jansma, van den Bos and de Graaf (2024) quantitative study of the motivations of Extinction Rebellion protesters. Through their interviews they found a universal sense of injustice in their personal futures, as well as a belief that the government fails to take their concerns seriously. This is consistent with other studies among climate activists, where there is a universal sense of gloom and uncertainty. The correlation between emotions and protest is where, according to Goodwin et al. (2001), “grievances and emotions such as anger and frustration play an important role in motivating protest participants.” Where emotions are politically relevant, they can be regarded as highly socially constructed experiences.

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The existential idea of climate emergency can be viewed through a Bourdieuian lens. In this sense, there is a stark difference between concern with the air quality in your own immediate surroundings for example and an abstract notion of a climate emergency. As this relates to Bourdieu, we can situate this abstraction within the ʻasceticism of the privilegedʼ. This means that those with lower economic and cultural capital have a materialist preference for utility; while the affiuent distance themselves from material necessity as they have less need for it. Working-class people face the material effects of pollution, for example, in the disproportionate health effects of smog in cities; middle-class groups are isolated from these effects and will therefore give less weight to its damage. This single issue framing is characterised by the domination of the middle-class constituency in environmental politics. (della Porta & Portos, 2021) It can therefore be inferred that different social groups give different symbolic meanings to climate change, but still the middle-class commands the discourse.

 

A concrete example of middle-class habitus alienating working-class individuals can be seen in Extinction Rebellionʼs adherence to mass arrest. As a tactic of civil disobedience, XR members willingly put themselves in a position to be arrested. For example, in an open letter from Wretched of the Earth, a grassroots organisation of minority groups demanding climate justice, they asked Extinction Rebellion to rethink a strategy of mass arrest that would be harmful to minority groups. (Bell, 2021)

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The privilege has been quantified by Hayesʼ, et al. (2024) study of levels of trust in the criminal process among Extinction Rebellion protesters. Their research found that XR protesters had “strong levels of trust in the criminal justice process; emphasis on action as moral agency and civic duty; and, a depoliticised conception of action, and, especially, a personalised commitment to the rights of future generations.” Therefore, it can be said that the environmental field is dominated by an educated middle-class which operate according to their learnt ʻrules of the gameʼ and, by operating apolitically, reproduce social relations.

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Performing  the Spectacle

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At the core of protest mobilisation around climate change is a discourse of fear. By framing climate change as an apocalyptic, existential threat – focusing on a depoliticised narrative – these movements reinforce the class system. Despite the radical nature of their protest, these movements fail to address the capitalist structures that perpetuate environmental harm, thus reproducing the social hierarchies that contribute to the crisis they aim to combat.

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Sydnedouw (2010) describes that, “At the symbolic level, apocalyptic imaginaries are extraordinarily powerful in disavowing or displacing social conflict and antagonisms.” The absolutism of the climate crisis and lack of political agenda suffocates the space for nuance – it is mobilisation without political issue. Instead of radical action, socio-cultural transformations are bound by the capitalist order within which they inhabit. As Mike Hulme (2019) puts it, “This squeezes out other matters of concern or else forces other issues to be reframed and subsumed within the politics of climate change.” As they practice an apolitical ecology, engaging in behaviour that does not cost in material or social terms, the environmental movement inadvertently reproduce class distinctions and fail to break free from their own habitus. Furthermore, by failing to challenge the root causes of ecological crisis, they are opening themselves to capitalist co-option.

 

These protest movements inadvertently perpetuating the very structures they aim to challenge, can be reframed within Rancièreʼs (1998) theory of the ʻpartition of the sensibleʼ. This refers to an implicit two-tier system in society that defines what is perceptible and thinkable, “a system of self-evident facts of perception based on the set horizons and modalities of what is visible and audible as well as what can be said, thought, made, or done.” (Rancière, 1998) This divides the world into predefined categories of who is allowed to be heard and what issues can be considered. It sets the boundaries for political engagement, social participation, and even the kinds of resistance that are considered legitimate or possible. By operating within their own habitus and refraining from more radical forms of protest that challenge economic and social power structures, protesters fail to break free from the predefined limits of their habitus.

 

Indeed, it can be argued that these protests have become commodified to be consumed by the middle class. According to Debord (2010), social life under capitalism has been reduced to ʻspectaclesʼ, that is images mediating social relations which prioritise appearance over substantive, material change. These spectacles function to commodify and depoliticise, turning resistance into consumable products that can be marketed to specific social classes. (Johnson, 2022)

 

By focusing on existential threats without addressing systemic political and economic inequalities, middle-class participants can operate in the environmental field without feeling the need to confront the economic structures that support their own privilege. Capitalism transforms meaningful political action into ʻspectaclesʼ that can be easily commodified and consumed. This creates a situation where climate change activism, while politically urgent, risks becoming a performance that reinforces the status quo rather than challenging it. Protest becomes a commodity, like any other consumer product, that can be purchased, consumed, and then discarded, rather than being a disruptive force that calls for systemic, radical change.

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Conclusion

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Ultimately, it is possible to analyse the contemporary climate justice movement as operating according to Bourdieuian principles of habitus, field and capital. This leads to profound implications for their legitimacy as a significant movement towards climate action. Fredriech Johnson (2003) once wrote, “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism.” Focusing on an abstract apocalyptic future, these movements merely work to reproduce social relations that advantage those already in possession of capital. By failing to embody a cross-class coalition and eschewing a concrete mandate for action, these movements are performative in their calls for change. Climate change is an issue that will affect all, with no respect for class, privilege or position in the globe.

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This calls to mind Leninʼs criticism of the anarchist tactics, believing that ʻpropaganda by the deedʼ would fail to instigate a popular uprising and that a mass movement was necessary. Lenin (1974) described the anarchists as “liberals with bombs” as they, like liberals, believed that propaganda alone, of deed and word, would bring about radical change. Perhaps, then, it is best to call Just Stop Oil ʻliberals with soup cans.ʼ

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