מקומיות לא מקומית: אתגרים וסתירות בפוליטיקה האלטרנטיבית של הבוחרים בחיי פשטות בישראל

This article addresses the challenges of environmental subpolitics inthe context of the risk society, where citizens turn to everyday individual political activism out of alienation from state politics. In particular, the paper focuses onthe political practices of people who choose a lifestyle of voluntary simplicityout of environmental considerations. Recognizing the importance of space forenvironmentalists, the article examines how the spatial perceptions of voluntary simplifiers shape their political activism. Based on interviews with voluntary simplifiers, we demonstrate that their political views embody constant tension between three spatial scales: the global, local, and domestic. Voluntary simplifiers are motivated by concern for the global environment, but their political actionis concentrated in the domestic sphere. Between those two spatial levels, theirpolitics remain neutral to the local Israeli context and excludes issues such as class,ethnic, gender or national inequality. For the voluntary simplifiers, locality does notinvolve Israeli political issues, but has a purely environmental value that is relevanteverywhere. Accordingly, we argue that theirs is in fact a “non-local locality”. Indiscussing the tensions of environmental subpolitics, the article highlights the uniquecomplexity of privatizing the political in an era of environmental risks.