Values, Emotions, and Knowledge in the Motivations Underlying Environmental Activism: The Case of Contested Green Spaces in Brussels

This study explores how citizens develop a sense of commonality by investigating the motivations that underlie their environmental activism. Our theoretical framework is based on engagement theory, from which we derive three fundamental components (i.e. cognitive, affective, and behavioural). Data derived from explorative fieldwork and in-depth interviews with engaged citizens and public servants provide the empirical grounding. Set in Brussels, Belgium, we focus on two cases that involve green spaces earmarked for future development and have been contested by citizens who have expressed various ecological and political demands. We find that the cognitive, affective, and behavioural dimensions are fundamental to understand environmental activism. In addition, we show that personal values are relational in nature and that indignation and anger are identified as pivotal for collective action. Also internal/external efficacy is important to understand citizens’ engagement. Citizens’ motivational components exhibit a robust form of entanglement that highlights a more complex mode of city-making, a finding that may inform environmental policies.