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Paper short abstract

Urban environmental communication involves conflicting temporalities between stakeholders involved. Drawing on the Caffaro case, this study conceptualizes temporal gears of care to show how communication is negotiated through temporal boundary objects to translate data into inclusive governance.

Paper long abstract

In complex urban contexts, “matters of care” emerge in the co-construction of environmental communication between institutions and citizens. This process should harmonize diverse perceptions of sustainability with the temporal rhythms of political cycles, bureaucratic procedures, media agendas and civic expectations (Lammers & Barbour, 2006b; 2011; Moscovici, 1981). Care thus becomes a negotiated practice, mediating among competing representations of sustainability and enabling the articulation of shared – though temporarily provisional – forms of communication.

While institutional discourse frames care primarily as citizen engagement, an ethnographic perspective reveals how communication flows are shaped by structural asynchronies (Jurin, 2010; Howlett, 2020). Environmental crises demand rapid responses, yet institutional timelines frequently lag behind ecological urgency and consensus-building processes (Istrate, 2022) generating temporal friction that undermines effectiveness of communication.

This contribution draws on the Caffaro case remediation (Brescia), a contested project spanning over two decades, and on the Caffaro Observatory, established in 2021 as a participatory forum. Since 2022, the Observatory has worked to develop a Communication Protocol integrating diverse actor perspectives. Using qualitative methods – participant observation, thematic analysis and interviews – the research analyzes care ias temporal compromise between stakeholders in translating technical information.

Findings conceptualize communication as a system of “temporal gears” generating friction in data care and sharing. The translation of environmental data into actionable knowledge occurs through boundary objects – such as communication bulletins – that function as negotiated compromises of care. The resulting Communication Protocol exemplifies an attempt to manage temporal asynchrony, maintaining intelligibility and trust.