Eco-Activism and Strategic Empathy in the Novel Vastakarvaan

Abstract

Ecocritical children’s literature research in the 2020s focuses on eco-activism, especially climate activism. Although the causes of activism have changed, different kinds of dissent are still relevant. This article focuses on Mika Wickström’s novel Vastakarvaan (Against the Grain, published in 2002), which describes a young Finnish student’s ethical dilemma: her eco-anarchist friends are planning an attack on a fur farm that the protagonist’s family owns. It evaluates the novel with new theoretical insights from affective ecocriticism and narrative empathy, and the main concepts that have been explored are youth activism and types of dissent. The analysis is grounded in the concept of strategic empathy, exploring the ways in which emotions and ethical decisions of the protagonist are represented in physical, social, and temporal settings: how types of dissent are presented and how bounded strategic empathy, ambassadorial strategic empathy, and broadcast strategic empathy are presented. The analysis demonstrates how the protagonist’s dilemma is emphasized in different stages of dissent: her decision to participate in the attack or not is debated on different levels of narration.

1. Introduction

In recent research of ecocritical children’s literature, activism has been related to climate activism, especially when discussing books inspired by activists such as Xiuhtezcatl Martinez or Greta Thunberg (see, e.g., Murphy 2024; Oziewicz and Saguisag 2021). Climate change is a global issue that requires global solutions. It is an intangible object and can be seen as a hyperobject that is indefinable in place, time, and causality (see Morton 2013; Oziewicz and Saguisag 2021). Hyperobjects are often associated with anxiety and fear because they are phenomena on a large scale and are difficult to counter and connect to responsible actors. Instead of these kinds of questions of activism and emotions, this article discusses activism connected to a smaller-scale, distinct issue, namely rebellion for animal rights. The aim is to study the forms that dissent takes in a Finnish young adult (YA) novel, which describes actions connected to the animal liberation movement and what kind of empathy is connected to rebellion and ethical decision-making.

At the beginning of the 21st century, young people’s relation to nearby nature, wildlife, and animals’ rights were more newsworthy than climate issues. Animal justice and ethical choices were more manageable as tangible problems, focusing on local concerns instead of global actions and issues of socio-economic injustice or intergenerational injustice linked to climate crises (Piispa and Kiilakoski 2022). Activism was connected to political movements or organizations, and narratives about Anomalia and Greenpeace were fed to the global population, also in Finland. The issue of animal liberation is bound to the attacks on Finnish farms, while they opened a vivid discussion on animal justice and the treatment of animals. The issue was thematized even in Finnish literature, as literary scholars have pointed out in their studies on fur farming discourse in relation to different genres, like poetry or detective stories (Lahtinen 2013; Lehtimäki and Luhtala 2020). The animal rights movement was associated with Finland, especially as a youth movement, and young adult attacks on fur farms and ecotages starting in 1995 were widely noticed (Lundbom 2016). Activists started public acts of animal liberation and demonstrations. These can be seen as following the animal liberation movement’s background philosophies, such as Tom Regan and Peter Singer’s book Animal Liberation. A New Ethics for our Treatment of Animals (Singer 1975). In Finland, the Animal Liberation Front movement and national associations were established quite late. The armed attacks on mink and chinchilla farms in Ostrobothnian regions were serious. After an understanding of the problems caused by the liberation of animals to wildlife, the liberation front moved to video campaigns and used social media to reveal the maltreatment of animals (Lundbom 2016, pp. 47–48).

Animal rights activism was also reflected in YA literature before the flood of eco-dystopias (Rättyä, forthcoming). When activism focuses on animal liberation instead of climate change, the power relations are different. Animal liberation activists need to account for the suffering of animals inside and outside their cages and the survival of released animals. As well the livelihoods of farming entrepreneurs and their ability to take care of non-released animals must be considered. Sabotages and anarchism affect people in other ways than today’s Extinction Rebellion attacks on museums, parliament buildings or traffic; activists attack small-scale actors instead of the bigger governance. The forms of activism and dissent vary.

Research on eco-citizens, environmental heroes, and eco- and climate-warriors in ecocriticism (e.g., Heggen et al. 2019; Massey and Bradford 2011; Moriarty 2021; Murphy 2024; Schreiber 2021; Stephens 2010) is expanding rapidly. Even radical environmentalism has been described in YA literature, such as Carl Hiaasen’s novels (Aitchison 2015; Panos 2017). Effects and empathy have also been the focus of recent ecocriticism and eco-narratology (Gaard 2020; Weik von Mossner 2020b), and empirical ecocriticism has increased (e.g., Goga and Pujol-Valls 2020; Guanio-Uluru 2019; Małecki et al. 2020). This article zooms in and studies eco-activism and the animal liberation movement in the YA novel. The focus is on Northern Europe, Finland, where fur farms still function, although most European countries have banned fur farming by law. At the turn of the millennium, the animal rights movement’s attacks in Finland have been dealt with in only a few YA novels. It might become a topic that will gain more prominence in the time of new materialist viewpoints (see also Ääri 2017).

The affective turn on children’s literature research has been described in several articles and anthologies (see, e.g., Bullen et al. 2018; Coats and Papazian 2023; Stephens 2014). Still, the perspective of empathy has been focused on in only a few articles, for example, articles in the anthology Affect, Emotion, and Children’s Literature. In their publications, Nikolajeva (2018) and Kokkola (2018) approached empathy in children’s fiction but based their views on cognitive psychology or the concept of the theory of mind instead of affective narratology. Therefore, I find there exists a research gap in looking at empathy in a sense, as Keen (2007) presents it, and I combine the perspective with an issue of rebellion for animal rights.

The aim is to explore the ways empathy is built in a novel that discusses difficult ethical environmental justice issues; thus, the critical theoretical frameworks chosen for this article are effective ecocriticism (Bladow and Ladino 2018) and eco-narratology (James 2015) and the main conceptual frameworks are strategic empathy (Keen 2008) and youth dissent (O’Brien et al. 2018). The youth dissent typology provides an adaptable frame for exploring representations of environmental activism. I explore the ways in which the emotions and ethical decisions of the protagonist are represented in physical, social, and temporal settings—how dissent is presented in the text and what kinds of strategic empathy are introduced.

2. Theoretical Framework

The affective perspective framing this article is grounded in affective ecocriticism (Bladow and Ladino 2018; Gaard 2020, pp. 225–27). The purpose of it is, as Bladow and Ladino (2018) described, “to identify the emotions that circulate environmental issues today, to clarify how that circulation works, to acknowledge the powerful role environments themselves play in shaping affective experience, and to identify new affects emerging in our contemporary moment” (p. 3).

2.1. From Activism to Disruptive Dissent and Eco-Anarchy

When O’Brien et al. (2018) studied the variety of forms of dissent, they focused on how youth challenge power relationships, especially those that are used for legitimating or constituting practices connected to perpetuating climate change. Based on an analysis of interviews and an extensive literature review of youth activism and political activism, they created a typology of three types of youth activism—dutiful, disruptive, and dangerous dissent. The borders of types are not clear cut, but they can exist, overlapping each other when describing youth’s symbolic acts or political mobilization. Their view on youth as challenging the maintenance of the status quo in climate change policy provides a fruitful perspective for analyzing youth activism in YA literature. Although their focus is on climate change, this typology is applicable to other kinds of eco-activism. I will deploy it in my analysis of a novel about animal rights activism.

The first type of activism is dutiful dissent, which refers to dissent expressed through participating in activities organized by existing institutions. It expresses resistance to dominant practices. This kind of dissent can be focused on the decision-making process connected to fossil-fuel production or urban planning. Activists’ actions are mainly targeted to strengthen the legitimacy of these organizations or institutions. The second type, disruptive dissent, questions the organizational and institutional power to make changes by challenging power relationships through protests, marches, or rallies. The third type, dangerous dissent, goes beyond boycotts by trying to create new forms or actions of rebellion that could cause long-term transformations. The practices and technologies vary greatly, and opening the critique against the systems gives rise to dangerous actions. The adjective dangerous in the label refers to the threat actions cause to the powerful and political elite. Beyond the three dissent types, there exist violent forms of activism (O’Brien et al. 2018). These forms of anarchist activism can turn to sabotage and terrorism—in this context, environmental violence, ecotages, and eco-terrorism. In the Finnish context and discourses of eco-activism, the word eco-terrorism was often used in both media texts and fiction (Lahtinen 2013; Lehtimäki and Luhtala 2020).

2.2. Affective Ecocriticism and Strategic Empathy

An affective turn has been taken during the last 20 years in ecocritical research (Gaard 2020; Weik von Mossner 2017, pp. 8–13). As James (2015, pp. 5–33) and Weik von Mossner (2017, pp. 12–13) expressed, there is a need for a narrative analysis of affective perspectives in ecocriticism. They draw the integration of ecocriticism and narratology from Lehtimäki’s (2013) view of the cross-fertilization of these approaches. Thus, my analysis is grounded in eco-narratology (Weik von Mossner 2020a). Following James’ (2015, pp. 24–25) focus, the main questions of eco-narratology concern micro- and macro-narrative structures and different scales of environmental space and time. I achieved this by applying the concept of strategic empathy (Keen 2007, pp. 142–43; Weik von Mossner 2017, pp. 80–83, 103–4; also Małecki et al. 2020).

I rely on Keen’s (2007, pp. 4–5) interpretation of the concept of empathy as “spontaneous, responsive sharing of an appropriate feeling” and describing how “we feel what we believe to be the emotions of others”. My perspective has also been influenced by Paul Hogan (2018), who emphasizes how an “author’s effort to cultivate reader’s empathies towards thematic ends” (p. 184) is the purpose “for a particular audience”. The further take on affective ecocriticism and empathy in this context is inspired by Weik von Mossner’s (2017) writings.

Affective criticism provides tools for studying emotional experiences in fiction. When I study empathy in the text, I focus on how the characters experience the feelings or affective reactions of other characters in the novel (Hogan 2011, p. 63; 2018, p. 119). According to these premises, empathy in fiction can also be defined as aesthetic empathy, as it does not include the reader’s actions (Hogan 2011, p. 276; Keen 2007, p. 4).

Strategic empathy has been connected to politically and ideologically minded author’s techniques (Hogan 2018, pp. 128–30; Weik von Mossner 2017, p. 82). Keen (2007, pp. 142–43; 2008) described the choices the author has with the concept of strategic empathy, which can vary in the author’s attempt to achieve the readers’ attention from feeling with familiar others to emphasizing our common vulnerabilities and hopes. Bounded strategic empathy addresses readers who are compounded within the group (ideology), while ambassadorial strategic empathy aims to encourage prominent or possible group members to join the group. The third variation of strategic empathy is broadcast strategic empathy, which targets a large audience (Keen 2008). I apply this hierarchical model of empathy to my analysis.

3. Against the Grain: A Finnish View on Animal Activism

In the early 2000s, YA novels tackled lofty themes in various ways. As modern authority lost its significance in the lives of postmodern youth, the questioning of power and the testing of boundaries took on new forms. Emotional abuse, states of mind, and anorexia rose to prominence in Finnish YA literature. The limitations of life, death, and existence became central themes, shifting from the “problem” realism of the 1990s to ontological explorations of basic existence and responsibility.

Contemporary YA literature has dealt with questions of utopia and postapocalyptic themes, and the agency of young adults has often been placed in the near future. Ecocritical thematic have been studied more in children’s literature and picturebooks and are often related to climate change questions. The YA literature that describes animal liberation issues is scarce, but the attacks that were designed and executed by young female activists especially raised the issue in literary fields (Laakso et al. 2019; Lahtinen 2013; Rättyä 2005, pp. 12, 36; Säntti 2011). According to the database of the Institute for Finnish Children’s Literature, only a few YA novels concerning eco-rebellion with animal liberation or ecotage have been published. The first of these was published just after the media attention garnered by the attacks. Nora Schuurman, in her Pelkääjän paikka (Passenger Seat, Schuurman 1996), wrote about ecotages. Tapani Bagge’s Suden hetki (Wolf Hours, Bagge 1999) deals with sabotage. Freeing broiler chickens, attacks against milk production farming, and mad cow disease (BSE) were items in Seita Parkkola’s and Niina Repo’s Lupaus (The Promise, Parkkola and Repo 2007), Anu Ojala’s Pommi (The Bomb, Ojala 2014) and Petos (The Deception, Ojala 2018). In Pommi and Petos, the activists change their modus operandi while they reveal mistreatment through video filming or broadcasting instead of direct attacks or releasing the animals, as in Mika Wickström’s Vastakarvaan (Against the Grain) (Wickström 2002).

Mika Wickström (1965–) is a significant reformer of Finnish YA literature who portrays the postmodern world, geopolitics, and future threats faced by the youth of the 1990s (e.g., Grünn 2003). Wickström’s book, Sukupolvi X (Generation X, Wickström 1995), sheds light on gang life and family estrangement caused by individualism and language. In his novels Sebastian (Wickström 1996) and Kunniakierros (Wickström 1998), he grapples with serious subjects, such as schizophrenia and doping. Wickström makes bold moves and unflinching dissections in both his narratives and settings, as seen in Vastakarvaan. His work is both timely and timeless and addresses his subjects robustly. Wickström can be seen as an ideologically minded author. In addition to his serious YA novels, Wickström has written fiction about sports in his earlier novels. He has also been acknowledged for his biographies and factual books.

In Vastakarvaan, Wickström explores the theme of animal rights activism. The narrator of the novel is Kirsi, a first-year biology student from Ostrobothnia. She grew up in a family that had a fur farm. Kirsi begins her biology studies at the University of Turku and, following her new friend Rosa enrolls in an environmental philosophy course where she experiences an ideological awakening. The course is taught by devoted lecturer Janne Saarikoski, through whom Kirsi becomes acquainted with the principles of ecological anarchism. Through Rosa, Kirsi meets a group of activists who put these principles into practice. They advocate for the philosophy of maximal freedom: “Anyone can do anything as long as they do not oppress, exploit, or harm other living beings or nature”. However, the contemplation of ecological anarchism, maximal freedom and an anarchist society does not excite Kirsi initially. Gradually, she becomes more involved with the animal activist group and begins to change her views on the treatment of animals. She starts participating in demonstrations and gains access to the activists’ plans for past and future actions. Eventually, Kirsi faces significant decisions: Is she willing to move from theory to action for animal rights, and what price is she ready to pay for her choices? Finally, she must face a choice between her family and her new friends and ideals.

Throughout the book, Kirsi repeatedly reflects on the lifestyle choices of her acquaintances, especially when she learns that her friends target animal testing laboratories and fur farms to draw public attention and further animal rights. As a biologist, Kirsi also wants to protect animals, but she is not unconditionally ready to accept her friends’ approaches. Ultimately, Kirsi commits to participating in an attack on a fur farm. The nature of the operation requires Kirsi to first commit to the cell, and only then do the others reveal the target of the attack to her. Her world is shaken when she realizes that this time, her friends’ target is her own parents’ fur farm. The ending of the story is open, but Kirsi’s decision is not told.

4. Analysis Method

The article explores (1) the ways in which the emotions and ethical decisions of the protagonist are represented in physical, social, and temporal settings, (2) what kinds of strategic empathy are presented, and (3) how different types of dissent are presented in the text. To analyze the novel, I explored the ways in which it represents the milieu, which consists of physical, social, and temporal settings; what kinds of empathy the characters experience and the author creates; and how dissent is presented in the text. I used ecocritical content analysis (EcCA, see Rättyä 2018, forthcoming), which has been inspired by Short’s (2017, pp. 1–15) view on critical content analysis (see also Bradford 2017; Mathis 2015).

I examined the representations of the environment and a character’s social relationships with typology ecological settings in text and pictures (Rättyä 2018). The typology covers three system levels. The first is the microsystem, which comprises the characters’ immediate surroundings or settings. The second is the mesosystem, which comprises the milieus in which the individual participates, and the third is the macrosystem, which contains the social, educational, ideological, or institutional patterns of a culture or subculture. These system levels were studied in social, physical, and temporal settings. Social settings can be divided into system levels based on the scale and intensity of social connections. The distance from protagonists’ homes constructs different physical settings in the micro-, meso-, and macro systems, ranging from local to global. Temporal settings extend from the immediate time of events to decades and centuries. (Rättyä 2018, pp. 161–63). After analyzing the ecological settings, I examined the emotions related to the types of dissent that the characters expressed in social and physical settings and reviewed the appearance of emotions at each system level. This reading applied typology by O’Brien et al. (2018), which consists of three types of youth activism—dutiful, disruptive, and dangerous dissent.

5. Results

5.1. Arenas for Eco-Activist Rebellion

The temporal macrosystem setting in Vastakarvaan is 21st-century Western society, which deals with technological items (mobile phones). Veganism, the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), and the attempts to ban fur farming signal the environmental turn in societies. The temporal mesosystem setting is described with short references to ecotage and attacks, such as Romania’s cyanide catastrophe and attacks on Finnish fur farms. The plot is placed in actions covering almost one academic year from Autumn to Spring, depicting Kirsi’s first lectures and Springtime. The Finnish seasons aptly reflect the scale of feelings, while the darkest moments in Kirsi’s experience of animal treatment at home farm are in the darkest and coldest time of the year. The Spring sun and tinkling rills illustrate the new beginning at the end of the novel. The timeline is illustrated and periodized with rallies and ecotages.

In Vastakarvaan, discussions of the Finnish welfare state, Finnish law and political decisions, as well as the socio-economic questions of the social macrosystem, depict the social settings. The broader intellectual social milieu is made familiar in the text by introducing international eco-philosophers and authors. For example, animal justice issues are scrutinized with the help of Peter Singer’s texts. Moral philosophers Jeromy Bentham and Tom Regan are also mentioned in Saarikoski’s lectures on eco-anarchism.

Social settings are quite limited. Kirsi’s nearest friend is Rosa, who proves to be a radical activist. Rosa’s friend Carita enters Kirsi’s nearest circle. During her visit to her childhood home, Kirsi spends her time with family members: mother, father, brother Kimmo, and her ex-boyfriend Arto. Otherwise, only lecturer Janne Saarikoski has a bigger role in her life—as a kind of mentor and a short love story before Kirsi realizes her affection for Rosa. The mesosystem of social settings is also quite narrow. Some study mates are presented in connection with parties and lectures. This concentrated, tightly packed assemblage is used skillfully to enlighten the questions of animal justice while the cell of activists is tightening its grip on Kirsi’s actions and possible actions against fur farms.

The physical settings are in line with the social settings. The dichotomy of ideological foundations is depicted on the micro level between Rosa’s and friends’ rooms where banners are made for rallies and Kirsi’s own childhood home farm, lecture hall for eco-anarchism and moral philosophy contra fur farms at hometown on the meso level, and academic world and fur industry at Ostrobothnia on the macro level.

Thus, the arenas for eco-activist rebellion are built from the micro level to the macro level with dichotomies: Kirsi’s small circles at home change to cells of activists, and the rural district of fur farmers to an environmental philosophy course at university and eco-philosophers.

5.2. Towards Bounded Strategic Empathy

The dichotomies at system levels in settings emphasize Kirsi’s two-fold standpoint—whether to understand and accept fur farming and farmed production as a trade or to rally for animal rights. In the narrative, Kirsi’s empathy-inviting dilemma is accentuated with first-person narration. Her choice to appraise animal justice is built up with four sections in the novel Vastakarvaan. I explored what kind of empathy exists and what kinds of strategies are to be considered with the help of Keen’s (2007, 2008) hierarchical model of strategic empathy.

The first section presents the ideology of eco-anarchy and animal rights as well as moral-philosophical perspectives. The author’s strategy to discuss these questions can be regarded in Keen’s terms as broadcasting strategic empathy. The lectures by Saarikoski and the works by Singer and Bentham are introduced as quite neutral informative resources. The gospel is targeted at a broader audience that is not expected to act. Ambassadorial strategic empathy, which addresses people outside the group but aims to cultivate their empathy (Keen 2008, p. 483), is present in the first and second sections, where Rosa and Janne talk about the issue of animal rights. This appeals to Kirsi’s and readers’ emotions by considering the issues at a more personal level: her choices of clothing and fabrics (leather, cotton, or line), her diet (veganism), fossil-fuel energy, and transport are challenged. What kind of decisions do she and other people make in their daily lives, and what kind of effects might they have?

The third section delves into more concrete actions that need to be taken, according to eco-anarchists. This bounded strategic empathy, which is aimed at the persons already being part of the inside group (Keen 2008, pp. 481–82), arises when Rosa and Carita commit Kirsi for radical activism by taking her to rallies, hiding the secret documentaries of the cell and preparing the attacks. The change from dutiful to disruptive dissent is shown in first-person narration of Kirsi’s excitement at the meeting before the target is exposed.

I waited in silent excitement, wondering what it was about—a liberation strike, toppling hunting platforms, sabotaging road construction machinery, gluing the locks of a slaughterhouse…?

- -

When Carita asked me to open the map file to the page of Ostrobothnia, my heart nearly stopped. There was still a chance to back out. I knew nothing about the strike. Ostrobothnia was a large area. I could have said I agreed to go anywhere but Ostrobothnia.

(p. 252)

[Odotin jännityksestä mykkänä, mistä oli kyse—vapautusiskusta, metsästyslavojen kaatamisesta, tietyökoneiden sabotoinnista, teurastamon lukkojen liimailusta…?

—

Kun Carita pyysi minua avaamaan karttatiedostosta Pohjanmaan sivun, sydämeni oli pysähtyä. Vielä olisi ollut mahdollisuus perääntyä. En tiennyt iskusta mitään. Pohjanmaa oli iso alue. Olisi voinut sanoa että suostuin lähtemään minne tahansa mutten Pohjanmaalle.

(p. 252)

At this moment, the activist’s pride in their work is also mentioned; the pride is that so many farms have already been targets.

The final section concerns Kirsi’s decision to be part of the eco-activist cell. The author’s strategic empathy does not seem to continue on the side of the action; the novel ends with the open question of whether Kirsi decides to participate in the sabotage. The closure is open, and the author loosens the grip. Throughout the novel, the author uses expressions of anarchism, anarchy, and eco-terror. This reflects the time of publication and the Finnish context. Terror is mainly used in chapters that talk about media attention on rallies and sabotages.

5.3. Invitation to Dangerous Dissent and Eco-Anarchy

As the first-person narrator explains her feelings during and after the first lectures, her own beliefs and understanding of the world are questioned. She hears about ecological anarchism for the first time, and the lecturer combines eco-anarchism with the philosophy of maximal freedom. It is explained that anyone can do anything so far as they do not subjugate, deprive, or harm other living creatures or nature and that in an anarchist society there is no power hierarchy but only autonomic individuals. That leads to their own responsibilities (pp. 11–13).

Kirsi’s knowledge of what animal rights are is turned over from her previous insights:

I hated philosophy. I applied to study biology because I loved animals and nature and wanted a profession in which I could combine work and hobbies. I had lived in the countryside all my childhood, roamed the forests, and learned to respect nature on its own terms. Environmental philosophical contemplation meant nothing to me. I simply did not understand what it was about or why it was needed.

(p. 16)

[Inhosin filosofointia. Olin tullut lukemaan biologiaa, koska rakastin eläimiä ja luontoa ja koska halusin ammatin, jossa pystyin yhdistämään työn ja harrastukset. Olin asunut maalla koko lapsuuteni, samoillut metsissä ja oppinut kunnioittamaan luontoa sen omilla ehdoilla. Ympäristöfilosofinen pohdiskelu ei merkinnyt minulle mitään. En kerta kaikkiaan ymmärtänyt, mistä siinä oli kyse ja mihin sitä ylipäänsä tarvittiin.]

Kirsi is provoked by the lecturers’ ideas and Carita’s questions about why she is wearing leather clothes or eating animals. She is upset when city girls tell her how to relate to animals, even though she had a very close relationship with animals during her childhood. They tell her that she does not have enough knowledge. Kirsi turns in tears. As a first step to understanding animal justice, she is encouraged to read Peter Singer’s Justice for Animals. Thereby, Kirsi’s earlier choices of living are gradually questioned. In the first and third portions of the book, Kirsi does not understand why Rosa is a vegan. Kirsi sees milk products as a normal part of the food industry and as a good way to favor local organic farms. Her own beliefs are highlighted, and she admits that it is not worth arguing with Rosa or Carita while her own knowledge is not sufficient.

These changes reflect the idea of broadcast strategic empathy and dutiful dissent. First, Kirsi is given general information on the possibilities of changing her lifestyle and participating in the movement, starting with her own smaller-scale actions. However, her actions are not quite what her new friends expect. Their actions are disruptive and aim to challenge systems.

The next level of insight into activists’ actions is when Rosa is caught and injured during an attack on a chinchilla farm. The short episode makes the philosophy of total freedom concrete and real. When Kirsi describes her feelings about Rosa’s experiences, Kirsi (in a first-person narrator) expresses how devastated she is.

I was shocked to my core. What else could I have been? I did not believe Rosa to be like that. She could not be that foolish. She was an animal rights activist, ”fox girl”. She was ruining her life—and the lives of the farmers. The rodents would have been perfectly fine with their breeders. They received the best food and better treatment than most people. The same applied to other farm animals, such as foxes and minks, even though they all eventually ended up being killed.

[Olin sydänjuuriani myöten järkyttynyt.

Mitä muutakaan olisin voinut olla? En uskonut Rosaa sellaiseksi. Hän ei voinut olla niin tyhmä. Hän oli kettutyttö. Hän pilasi elämänsä—ja elinkeinonharjoittajienkin elämän. Jyrsijöillä ei olisi ollut mitään hätää kasvattajiensa luona. Ne saivat parasta ruokaa ja paremman kohtelun kuin valtaosa ihmisistä. Sama päti muihinkin tarhaeläimiin, esimerkiksi kettuihin ja minkkeihin, vaikka ne kaikki tulivatkin lopulta tapetuiksi.]

Rosa explained that they had done the background checking of the farm and the real condition of the place.

Kirsi (p. 76) then admits that she does not accept animal cruelty or approve of violence, while the misconditioning needs to be changed in legal ways. She places herself in a way that can be understood as dutiful dissent (O’Brien et al. 2018). The debate continues between Kirsi and Rosa; they discuss Finnish law and the Finnish way of accepting lower levels of animal rights questions than, for example, England or Sweden. Kirsi justifies her own view with the harm that will happen when animals are let into the wild nature (pp. 78–79). This phase does not end with mutual understanding; Kirsi is not ready to accept Rosa’s ideas before there is a better solution for the problem and the entrepreneurs. Kirsi understands that theory and practice do not proceed at the same tempo. Wickedly, Rosa asks Kirsi to hide some restored data concerning the attacks. Kirsi is now part of the inside group. This ends the first section by opening the door from dutiful dissent to disruptive dissent and showing Kirsi what dangerous dissent is.

The second section starts with a description of Rosa, Carita, and Kirsi, who are preparing themselves to participate in a rally against animal production. Kirsi has stepped into the side of disruptive dissent and challenged the powerful by participating in the rallies. Her knowledge has grown, and her thoughts have changed:

Everything I learned during autumn supported my belief that humans should better understand the uniqueness of nature and their responsibility for it. The idea that some saw evolution as nature’s great war, from whose suffering the noblest of animals, humans, had emerged, did not align with my own thoughts. It was necessary to understand that nature was not based on hierarchy but on diversity. Nature did not necessarily have a higher purpose than life itself.

(p. 96)

[Kaikki mitä olin oppinut syksyn aikana, tuki käsitystäni siitä, että ihmisen olisi pitänyt paremmin ymmärtää luonnon ainutkertaisuus ja vastuunsa siitä. Se että jotkut näkivät evoluution luonnon suurena sotana, jonka kärsimyksistä oli syntynyt eläimistä ylevin eli ihminen, ei vastannut omia ajatuksiani. Piti ymmärtää, ettei luonto perustunut hierarkiaan vaan monimuotoisuuteen. Luonnolla ei välttämättä ollut sen ylevämpää tarkoitusta kuin elämä itse.]

Her decisions of action are strengthened when she visits her home farm during the Christmas holidays. Finally, she had to leave earlier than expected when she heard the screaming and whining from their own fur cages. This is repeated twice (pp. 137, 143). Her feelings are not described in detail, but her reaction to crying is. The step from disruptive to dangerous dissent is not a big step, and even this does not really seem to follow the maximal freedom aspect (which was the starting point for lectures on eco-anarchy), while Kirsi is forced to take part in liberation action under time pressure.

6. To Conclude

Vastakarvaan describes a young student’s ethical dilemma: her eco-anarchist friends are planning an attack on a fur farm that the protagonist’s family owns, and she is involved. To explore the affective experiences and environmental topics depicted in the novel, the main concepts chosen for use in this study were types of dissent (O’Brien et al. 2018) and strategic empathy (Keen 2008). The analysis demonstrates how her dilemma was emphasized; her decision of whether to participate in the planned sabotage or not is debated on different levels of narration. This can be seen as a strong suggestion for implied readers to identify their own opinions.

With the help of different forms of strategic empathy and a typology of dissent, I explored micro- and macro-narrative structures and narrative strategies and identified the choices and emotions circulating animal justice issues in this novel. The typology describing forms of dissent revealed the layers of activism. However, as an analysis tool for further studies, I suggest an expanded typology with two forms of rebellious actions: ecotages and eco-terrorism. As Kirsi describes her thoughts on rebellion, first come sabotages, then ecotages, which cause financial loss (p. 209). The dissent typology was derived from youth activism on climate change in real life in O’Brien et al.’ (2018) research, which is based on power relationships. Ecotages and eco-terrorism move beyond power positions while potentially affecting everyone limitlessly. The two added forms of activism or anarchy are though described in YA fiction and depict violent, radical, and illegal actions. As such, they evoke negative emotions and can be used as tools for strategic empathy. Inspired by Weik von Mossner’s (2017) readings, I applied Keen’s idea of strategic empathy in my analysis and examined the three variations of strategic empathy in the actions of the main characters and their ways of impacting each other. The author’s empathy strategy also aims to reach and speak to the implied audience through broadcasting and ambassadorial strategic empathy. Empathy is built from public to private, bounded belonging to an ideological group, emphasizing the character’s position as an outsider. By taking the main character to the border of dissent and ecotages, the moral values and empathy for the person who must make the decision are brought to the forefront.