New Social Movement Theory and Water Activism in Guelph, Ontario, Canada

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There is a very obvious economic conflict at the heart of water activism in Guelph, Ontario, that pits the giant corporation against community needs and environmental sustainability, capital accumulation and private profits against public needs, commodification against commons. Despite all this, the patterns, rhetoric, demographics, and tactics of activists do not follow a traditional Marxist trajectory. For some, this apparent demise of class-based, revolutionary social movement rhetoric and action have signalled an "end of history." For more optimistic others like Alain Touraine, Alberto Melucci, Claus Offe, etc., however, the new, more action-oriented, expressive, and decentralized forms of contestation that emerged in the late 1960s and into the 1970s and 1980s represent a "Return of the actor" that can and must be understood and reinforced if effective resistance to capitalism and state in their neoliberal forms is to be mounted. In this paper, as a means of testing some of this theory, I explore some key elements of New Social Movement theory through an examination of emergent grassroots water activism in Guelph, Ontario.

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