Project+Abstract+B

There is growing recognition of the important role of social movements in driving the “greening” of industry. In this paper, I argue that the relationship between social movements and industry change is complicated by environmental groups promoting contradictory goals. This paper examines the effect of such contradictions on the developing “bioplastics” industry in the United States. In this industry environmental advocates and entrepreneurs run into conflict as they promote their own visions of sustainability and innovation. This analysis is to forward the debate on the social construction of technology as well as social movement scholarship from sociology and anthropology. I discuss several instances of conflict that have occurred within the bioplastics field including waste processing of goods, consumption and consumers, and sources of the feedstocks for these polymers. I will show how the success of early environmental movements can create hurdles for subsequent movements and how the sociocultural backdrop influence the available pathways of innovation and intervention. The discussion develops the limitations in social movement and industry change research and how introducing notions of movement heterogeneity, institutionalization and temporality can improve the analysis of this scholarship.