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- Convenors:
-
Warren Pearce
(University of Sheffield)
Yuting Yao (The University of Sheffield)
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- Format:
- Traditional Open Panel
Short Abstract:
Cultural climate models offer simplified representations of complex and uncertain issues of ethics and values. These models illuminate interactions and mobilities between ‘is’ and ‘ought’ in the pathways of transition proposed in science, policy, literature, education and the media.
Long Abstract:
The cultural modelling of climate change is an emerging research topic at the intersection of STS and the environmental humanities (Hoydis et al., 2023). The central role of scientific modelling in the development of climate change as an idea has previously been analysed and critiqued in STS (e.g. Demeritt, 2001; Knox, 2015; Guillemot, 2022). This scholarship has shown how scientific modelling has both helped to stabilise climate as a topic of political importance (Edwards, 1999) while also hindering the consideration of ethical questions around how societies should respond (Rubiano Rivadeneira & Carton, 2022).
Cultural modelling is of equal importance to scientific modelling in understanding climate futures across different social, geographical and temporal contexts. Like the technical models used by climate scientists, cultural models offer simplified representations of a complex and uncertain reality. Unlike scientific models, cultural models explicitly engage with issues of ethics and value. Thus moving between ostensibly neutral (climate) facts and normative (social) values, cultural modelling allows us to better understand the interactions and mobilities between models of climate futures (‘is’) to models for climate futures (‘ought’).
This panel provides a space to reflect on how cultural forms such as policy documents, science communication, literature, social media posts and educational materials model possible climate futures, debate values, and suggest pathways of transition in response to the climate crisis (e.g. distributive justice, veganism and antinatalism).
We warmly welcome theoretical, empirical and methodological contributions on topics including (but not limited to):
The imagined human in climate futures;
Intersectionality and cultural climate modelling;
Visualising climate change;
Cultural models in climate science-policy;
Cultural climate models in the media
Narrative and language in climate discourse.
This panel contributes to the conference theme of making and doing transformations, and how STS scholars can pluralise the knowledge brought to bear on normativities of transformation.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Yuting Yao (The University of Sheffield) Warren Pearce (University of Sheffield)
Short abstract:
We respond to the 'crisis of imagination' in climate change with an innovative analysis of image and text used in both policy and cultural issue spaces on social media. We discuss specific examples of texts and image genres from the dataset and identify wider patterns of convergence and divergence.
Long abstract:
Climate politics appears to be stuck, with the public appetite for tackling climate change not being adequately matched by progress in climate politics. We take this as confirmation of Amitav Ghosh’s (2016) insight that climate change constitutes a ‘crisis of imagination’ in which the work done by science to make climate change visible is yet to be matched by political and cultural efforts. We respond to this crisis with an analysis of how policy and cultural climate issue spaces intersected during the COP28 talks in Dubai, bringing into view ‘pockets of innovation’ in contemporary climate politics (Callon et al.,1983). Using a novel dataset containing social media material related not only to familiar climate change terms (net zero, COP28, climate change) but also cultural movements concerned with environmental justice (veganism, antinatalism), our methodology combines corpus linguistics and digital methods to highlight the changing contours of climate problematisation (Marres and Gerlitz, 2016). We repurpose classic word co-occurrence methods from STS to identify how both text and image work together to bring about new cultural formations of climate change. In the paper, we discuss specific examples of texts and image genres from the dataset and identify wider patterns of convergence and divergence, notably where cultural spaces do (veganism) or do not (antinatalism) intersect with more established policy spaces. We also reflect on the presence, or otherwise, of science and technology within climate politics.
Pranjali Mann (Simon Fraser University)
Long abstract:
The paper looks at the work on imagining climate--which are depicted to be deeply intertwined with -- technology futures. Learning from the work on social imaginaries as proposed by Charles Taylor (2004), the paper uses a lens of expectations and constructions of myths to view our constructed relations with technology. The imagined human reality(s) in the climate futures are co- created with the ideals of technological "progress". Finding answers to social problems through "technology" is often rooted in its promise of progress and objective innovations. ‘New’ technologies are packaged through pre- existing scripts of myths about its prowess. Technology’s progress story, its dramas, and scripts of its capability to remedying the (social) ‘ills’, are repeated from the Gutenberg myth to Web 4.0 to "AI". Paper argues that the belief in “magic” of (new) technologies is not that new afterall. These mythmaking scripts are spun into speculative tales and fictions. Sturken et al. (2004) note that from 1950’s to present, science fiction (SF) film has given concrete narrative shape and visible form to America’s changing historical imagination about its “new” technologies. With this understanding, a focus on so- called green technologies and their depictions in science fiction is made. Depictions like Doraemon: Nobita and the Castle of the Undersea Devil, anime genre etc offer rich source of this cultural imagination.
The work borrows understandings of expectation studies, cyberpunk, social imaginaries and STS to inquire cultural depictions of "green" technologies and spaces like solarpunk(s).
Simona - Nicoleta Vulpe (University of Bucharest) Cosima Rughinis (University of Bucharest)
Short abstract:
Through 'climate diaries' at Bucharest University, we explore the struggle to reimagine habits amidst a consumerist order driven by fossil fuels, where science and technology play ambivalent roles in shaping and challenging norms. Diaries offer cultural models to tackle frictions and felt deviance.
Long abstract:
In recent decades, scientific revelations on climate change and public debates have disrupted the social fabric of consumerist capitalist societies. This study delves into the subjective experiences of reimagining lifestyles amidst the climate crisis through thematic analysis of 'climate diaries' from Bucharest University and digital media. We uncover how individuals reflect upon and navigate the ambivalence of science and technology—applauded for their diagnostic power yet critiqued for fostering the crisis. Writers rediscover and reinterpret widespread routines detrimental to human life on planet Earth, prompting efforts to reality-shifting, attempting to minimize their carbon and plastic footprints. Personal climate diaries thus serve as cultural models that bridge the gap between current practices ('is') and aspirational, ethical responses ('ought') to the climate crisis. Yet, adopting sustainable practices often challenges entrenched social norms and identities, sparking perceived deviance and social friction. These continuous frictions render the transition to climate change-focused social realities challenging and unstable. Our work offers insights into the enactment of science and technology in everyday life, their role in shaping consumerist societies, and illustrating the practical challenges and possibilities for enacting change in the face of the climate crisis.
Amalie Scheel (Aarhus University)
Short abstract:
This paper explores future meat-eating imaginaries in Danish online discussions through netnography. Employing the concept of social imaginaries, the paper demonstrates how pasts and presents are used to argue for different imaginaries and underlines the importance of affect in food politics.
Long abstract:
How do people imagine the future of sustainable eating, and in particular the future of meat-eating? This paper addresses such question through a netnographic (Kozinets, 2015) study of Danish Facebook discussions around the topic of meat-eating and meat reduction. Through the concept of social imaginaries (Taylor, 2004), this paper understands social imaginaries as both discourse and practice filled with normative and prescriptive ideas of sustainability. Studies of contemporary cultural models, such as comment section discussions, are crucial to identify both problems and opportunities for sustainable eating. Following STS-work on sociotechnical imaginaries (Jasanoff & Kim, 2009) and its focus on temporalities, the paper identifies four distinct future scenarios of eating as expressed by commenters and demonstrates how presents and pasts are used to argue for different scenarios. The analysis reveals the notions of national or regional belonging as well as ‘human nature’ as important ideas for people engaged in meat discussions. The paper argues that a future attentiveness towards affect and cultural feelings (Highmore, 2010) is crucial to unpack the politics of sustainable eating as they are constructed by and between people.
Highmore, B. (2010). Affect, Food, and Social Aesthetics. In M. Gregg & G. J. Seigworth (Eds.), The Affect Theory Eater. Duke University Press.
Jasanoff, S., & Kim, S.-H. (2009). Containing the Atom: Sociotechnical Imaginaries and Nuclear Power in the United States and South Korea. Minerva, 47(2), 119–146.
Kozinets, R. V. (2015). Netnography: Redefined (2nd ed.). SAGE Publication Ltd.
Taylor, C. (2004). Modern Social Imaginaries. Duke University Press.
Jake Allcock (University of Sheffield)
Long abstract:
Content creators on YouTube have been successful in communicating and engaging millions of people across the globe, shaping narratives and discussions around climate change. YouTube’s algorithmic systems have played a key part, but this has provided the platform the power of governing the visibility of what content users to interact with and consume (Gillespie, 2017). This dissemination of climate change content on YouTube will differ based on different locales and experiences from creators (Weber, 2010), yet significant focus remains on anglosphere perspectives. Therefore, my aim has been to map the ‘climate change space’ on YouTube by investigating how climate change is being distributed and presented globally. Moving away from the ‘snapshot’ exploration of algorithmic systems my methodology draws from Rieder et al., (2018) ‘Ranking Cultures’ approach to take a longitudinal exploration as to how the search results of climate change adjacent queries (Climate Change, Net Zero, Climate Crisis, Climate Justice, and Climate Science) are delivering content to English speaking audiences in the USA, India, and the Philippines over a 6-month period. From this dataset the verbal, visual, and textual content of the most visible videos were then examined to identify how climate change narratives are being built on the platform. From the result, I will discuss how the output of the YouTube search algorithm reacts overtime, while also noting how queries operate in their own issue spaces on the platform. I will also identify what climate narratives are dominant on the platform and the characteristics of visible videos.