The Process of Ecologisation: Is Schwarzenegger Back to Teach Us Something New?

Abstract

Back in 2007, Arnold Schwarzenegger received the European Campaigner of the Year award. At the pinnacle of his popularity as a politician, he problematically enacted and politically relied on what I referred to (Hultman, 2013) as “ecomodern masculinities” or green washing the pervasive systematic abuse against our planet. This chapter considers the ways that Schwarzenegger embodied and is now, in some sense, shifting away from an ecomodernist standing. Noting traces of alteration in the midst of rising social unrest, an escalating global climate emergency, and the gains of a youth climate justice movement lead by, among others, Greta Thunberg, I argue that Schwarzenegger might once again be back to give us important clues to how environmental politics is embodied in many (Global Northern) men’s lives. By looking at the recent and historic changes in the configuration of his identity, I argue that Schwarzenegger is tracking and re-embodying himself along with the changing discourses on gender and environmental justice that gravitate towards the values and practises elsewhere described as “ecological masculinities” (Hultman, 2017; Hultman & Pulé, 2018).