Towards an ecological ethics of academic responsibility: debunking power structures through relationality in Greek environmentalism

Abstract

ABSTRACT Whether scholars have the academic responsibility to debunk conspiracy theories depends on the social processes these theories set in motion. Based on ethnographic research with environmentalist activists in Greece, I argue that their engagement with conspiracy theories constitutes a kind of debunking that is both conceptual and relational. Specifically, the article traces four qualities of engagement with conspiracy theories in the Greek environmentalist scene: the conceptual opposition of structure with agency, the implementation of agency through personal development, the shift of significance from geopolitical power to environmental concerns, and finally the tackling of existing power structures through consequential ecological ethics. The core of this ethics is responsibility, and as such provides a valuable sign-post for the question this Special Issue poses. I argue that academic responsibility lies first and foremost in the pursuit of relationality. As science is increasingly used to serve political-economic knowledge authority and civil society truth trajectories, an ecological ethics based on relationality renews empiricist realism and thus debunks reifying power structures.