Bringing about the global movement for the rights of nature: sites and practices for intelligibility

Legal scholars, environmental organizations, indigenous groups and activists from around the world are energizing an emergent global movement on the rights of nature. To face the environmental crisis, these heterogeneous actors are coming together to reconceptualize nature as a legal subject. In this article, I examine Democracy Schools and Awakening the Dreamer Symposia (ADS) to establish where and how this emergent movement is being organized. The meaning structures, knowledge stocks and identity cues that characterize it are made intelligible to potential adherents through these seminars and workshops. Interpretive analysis reveals that Democracy Schools and ADSs are distinctively mobile and replicable infrastructures. The concept of ‘stagings' was developed to help examine cultural and spatial dynamics in heterogeneous and extensive collective action.