Writing (and) the Environment: Discourse, Deliberation, and Decision Making in Times of Crisis
The struggle for the environment, our perception of environmental crisis and injustice, and our understanding of how and why to act on environmental issues are largely shaped by competing discourses reflecting the interests of diverse social actors. In this CSTW research colloquium, experts on environmental discourse and activism examine these discourses and invite attendees to participate in a discussion of the consequences different discourses, ways of deliberating, and arguing have for our understanding of and action on environmental issues.
Green fingers? Language, power, and struggle in writing
for ecological and social justice
Drawing on institutional and political activist ethnography as well
as his own involvement in anti-imperialist activism, Aziz Choudry
critically examines discourses employed by non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) in this struggle, showing how NGO discourse
often remains firmly within 鈥渁cceptable鈥� parameters of dissent,
with NGOs thus operating as Trojan horses for neoliberalism.
Aziz Choudry is Assistant Professor, International
Education, in the Department of Integrated Studies in Education,
sits on the board of directors of Global Justice Ecology Project
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What if environmental problems are really educational
problems?
Drawing on three case studies of environmental debate (wind power,
land use, water quality), Bill Karis shows how actors in these
debates often search for quantitative answers to technical
questions 鈥� what Bryan Norton (2005) calls the 鈥渕yth of a correct
decision,鈥� ignoring the rhetorical nature of deliberation. The
presentation demonstrates the potential of deliberative rhetoric to
improve environmental decision making by facilitating the
integration of technical knowledge and human values, rendering
environmental problems ultimately educational problems.
Bill Karis is Associate Professor and former chair
of the Department of Communication and Media at Clarkson
University, New York. His primary research interest is in
environmental communication, an area in which he has published
articles, book chapters, and a co-edited book (with Nancy Coppola)
titled Technical Communication, Deliberative Rhetoric, and
Environmental Discourse: Connections and Directions (Ablex,
2000).
The social construction of argumentation in
organizational discourses: Representations of science in the
climate-change debate
Drawing on a case study of the Fourth Assessment Report: Climate
Change 2007 produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) and the responses to this report by a range of
organizations (environmental NGOs, political parties, government
agencies, scientific bodies, business corporations, and policy
think-tanks), Graham Smart analyzes how these organizations
represent science in advancing their arguments regarding the
reality and implications of global warming and climate change in
their efforts to influence public opinion and government
policy.
Graham Smart is Associate Professor in the School
of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies at Carleton University.
His research interests include writing in workplace, academic, and
public settings, areas in which he has published journal articles,
book chapters, and a book titled Writing the Economy: Activity,
Genre and Technology in the World of Banking (Equinox,
2007).
