Somewhere I belong: the field of new climate activists and the Czech environmental movement

Although the environmental movement has been around for a long time, it is going through a visible transformation right now. This is mostly due to the mobilization of newly established political actors, such as Fridays for Future (FFF) and Extinction Rebellion (XR), which focus on the issue of climate change. Using a relational perspective to analyze the strategies of established and new actors we ask: given the importance and characteristics of new actors in the field, is environmental activism heading towards higher integration or fragmentation? Reflecting on the field of environmental and climate justice activism in Czechia, we demonstrate its development towards a centralized and hierarchical structure, although we also identify elements of fragmentation. Importantly, our data demonstrate that the two modes of activism do not necessarily form exclusive patterns but can exist in a mutual symbiosis, which enriches the extant understanding of how different forms of activism operate.