Presentation short abstract

The dissent amongst critical political ecology and scientists who develop securitised framings linking climate change to conflict and displacement is analysed by the heuristics of critique as mediation.

Presentation long abstract

There are different opinions amongst critical political ecology and scientists who develop securitised framings linking climate change to conflict and displacement. When there is dissent, and communication stalls, mediation might be a way forward. Mediation starts with the employment of descriptive ethics depicting the senses of justice that each party involved has towards the contested topic. This is done to explore common grounds for the renewal of relations and to facilitate negotiation processes. From here, the paper develops critique as mediation as a heuristic for academic analysis.

Critique as mediation is grounded in procedural ethics of democratic deliberation. It considers how justice is dealt with in actual proceedings, respecting the importance of diverse needs and emotions by considering critique of situated positionalities, critique of ideology and personalist critique. It provides analysis of local constellations of actors and their points of dissent or conflict, as well as the potentials for mutual understanding and cooperation. It is about exploring the background of different justice claims and making this information accessible for further democratic deliberation. It thereby creates a basis for joint negotiations on the different claims' appropriateness and supports paths to mutual understanding and more qualitative discussions – in this case between scientists.