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- Convenors:
-
Aet Annist
(University of Tartu and Tallinn University)
Nina Moeller (University of Southern Denmark)
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- Format:
- Panel
Short Abstract:
This panel is considering the reasons for human tendency for BAU,such as lack of empathy with sustaining structures or sense of powerlessness.We aim to discuss resignation and indifference amidst life-endangering crises, but balance this with discussions on how to challenge this and push for change.
Long Abstract:
Amidst all the present crises, environmental catastrophe - led by climate change and biodiversity loss - is perhaps the most overwhelming and all-encompassing one, with capacity to destroy much of our normalities and what we value. Although we accept many transformations within our societal sphere, making decisive changes to avoid the enormous risk of collapsing ecosystems seems beyond us. Despite the looming dangers, most carry on business-as-usual (BAU).
This panel would like to explore why. Can we not identify (with) the structures that sustain us, to live differently to protect life? Might it be a lack of empathy towards the non-human - creatures, structures, systems, such as the Earth or the biosphere? Or a sense of lack of power over our own life? We also invite examples of human, but also non-human, ability to undo stagnant or resigned modes of existence, capable of bringing about change right now. What if we took charge and started today to push the systems towards a radical overhaul? What would it take, what do (we think) we lose? What if we, social scientists, instead (or besides) writing about it, relinquished our empathy into our field of study and acted according to the cultural/social critique we express in the printed word?
We invite explorations of empirical evidence and theoretical considerations on the reasons for lack of change, on our own power and desire for change, and discussions on how to overcome our stagnation and lack of care: in practice, in thinking, in writing.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper Short Abstract:
This presentation focuses on the human capacity to demand change and to act upon this, and what kinds of obstacles become apparent once people do set out to move away from a failed or a failing system. How do we undo the structures that hold us captive, and rise to the occasion?
Paper Abstract:
There is plenty of evidence that human species is extremely malleable and ready for change, both archaeological and historic, as well as recent. We can easily switch between different ways of ordering our own daily life, and although changing the whole societal arrangement is considerably more difficult, we are still able to proceed with that. Why then are we faced with incredible obstacles where change is necessary, or even existential? This presentation will look at groups and individuals who have set out to change their own lives as well as the society, primarily different environmental and climate protest groups, and explore their experiences with personal change, their strive for pushing such change outwards, and where do they get stuck. I will explore whether part of the problem is human malleability itself, its capacity to get used to systems that cause harm, and to accept or become blind to change. Are there ways to make us more alert to dangers that tolerance to existing arrangements, losses and violences could bring? What role do those pushing for change, such as frictious protest groups, play in this?
Paper Short Abstract:
Why does modern (‘developed’) society not only fail to strategically respond to the now glaringly obvious and existential global environmental crisis we face, but instead continues to rush headlong down a trajectory of ecological destruction? This paper proposes that a key reason for this dire situation is that globalised capitalist consumer culture (GCCC) creates forms of individual and collective becoming that are termed 'toxic dwelling'. Humans, as other related non-human animals, are evolved to dwell in lifeworlds which are rich in material, emotional, affective and, (in human terms) narrativised experiences. Toxic dwelling is formed of becomings-in-the-world through practices of narrativised consumption created by GCCC. This modern life is, in many ways, experientially rich, absorbing, exciting and fulfilling to many people. That is the problem. At the same time, it is also pathological and destructive of individual well-being and the ecological webs of life. The scale and impact of GCCC, in how it is produced, sold, consumed, and disposed of, is driving the ecocide of the ‘three ecologies’ - the interconnected physical, cultural, and psychic realms of ecological-social becoming (Guattari, 2000).
Paper Abstract:
Abstract. Why does modern (‘developed’) society not only fail to strategically respond to the now glaringly obvious and existential global environmental crisis we face, but instead continues to rush headlong down a trajectory of ecological destruction? This paper proposes that a key reason for this dire situation is that globalised capitalist consumer culture (GCCC) creates forms of individual and collective becoming that are termed 'toxic dwelling'. Humans, as other related non-human animals, are evolved to dwell in lifeworlds which are rich in material, emotional, affective and, (in human terms) narrativised experiences. Toxic dwelling is formed of becomings-in-the-world through practices of narrativised consumption created by GCCC. This modern life is, in many ways, experientially rich, absorbing, exciting and fulfilling to many people. That is the problem. At the same time, it is also pathological and destructive of individual well-being and the ecological webs of life. The scale and impact of GCCC, in how it is produced, sold, consumed, and disposed of, is driving the ecocide of the ‘three ecologies’ - the interconnected physical, cultural, and psychic realms of ecological-social becoming (Guattari, 2000). There are many forms of opposition to the forces that are causing ecocide across the earth, but at present, due the power and momentum of GCCC and related forces, they are fighting a losing battle. That battle is with what I am calling toxic dwelling, how modern society is in thrall to the colonising narratives, passions and textures that GCCC pumps through modern cultures in such vast, addictive, quantities.
Paper Short Abstract:
If human comprehension fails to grasp the hyperobject climate change, is the result inaction due to unwritability? I draw from the French Revolution, time of momentous societal change, to explore structures, which contribute to separation from nature paradigm. I ask how it could be rewritten.
Paper Abstract:
Climate (in)action is arguably the most important question of our time. Post-humanist Timothy Morton has suggested that humanity has entered an era where its actions upon the planet are becoming visible. The question of climate change is, justly, painted as a huge problem, further accentuated by a succession of failed international organisational action, outdated environmental laws, and greenwashing by multinational companies bolstered by governments. Has the narrative surrounding wicked problems made them insurmountable to the point of resignation and indifference among humankind?
Recent poll by Earth4All and Global Commons Alliance suggests otherwise. It found that majority of the citizens of G20 countries (excluding Russia) support climate action. Yet, there is variation within the group, and in addition, 26% of people are unengaged, 13% climate sceptics. I am curious as to how these different groupings could be reached to engage people in climate action.
I draw from my research in Cultural History – work in progress – on societal interaction and development of rights in the aftermath of the French Revolution. The bourgeois became citizens, citizens became consumers, what would make consumers into activists? Structures, such as colonialism, capitalism, and consumer culture guide behaviour and feed into the limits and possibilities perceived by actors. I look at the historical structures at play in climate crisis dating back to the Enlightenment to see how they impact modern empathy-dilemma.
Paper Short Abstract:
This paper affectively and creatively explores climate change through a lens of depression, building on discourses of climate distress to understand how we can learn to live-with climate change—how we increase our capacity to act, moving through stagnation and resignation towards repair, care and response-ability.
Paper Abstract:
As the climate crisis deepens, scholarship is increasingly engaged with themes of climate despair and fatalism; Marxist scholar Andreas Malm writes that ‘[it is] easier, at least for some, to imagine learning to die than learning to fight’ (Malm 2018:142). What then, of those who already want to die? This paper draws on autoethnographic and digital ethnographic research—of my own embodied and mediatised experiences—to affectively and creatively explore the climate crisis through a lens of depression and suicidality. How might this framing—of self-loathing and cynicism, exhaustion and apathy, and suicidal ideation—help us to understand stagnation, resignation, and perceived indifference in the context of the climate crisis? Building on discourses of climate distress, within which there has been little direct engagement with depression, I explore it as both a “psycho-social disability” (Stone 2018), and as manifestation of existential angst, one that can be both deeply debilitating yet also potentially transformative. Situated reflexively in my positionality as an "emergent adult" (Ojala and Anniko 2020) researching climate change in Aotearoa New Zealand, this paper moves through imagined climate futures, environmental misanthropy, capitalist realism, and digital overwhelm. If, as Verlie (2022) calls for, we must learn to live-with climate change, how do you learn to want to live, particularly in a context where the future seems increasingly grim? Drawing on autoethnographic understandings of research as deeply affective and potentially reparative, the paper retraces my own pathway through learning to live in spite of and with the climate crisis, towards acceptance, care, and response-ability.
Paper Short Abstract:
Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork on the Isle of Lewis, this paper examines how ‘authenticity’ is embedded in environmental conservation, language revitalization, and tourism planning to cultivate empathy and motivate action. It shows ‘authenticity’ mobilized by local conservationists and neoliberal policies to foster commitment to Scotland’s natural and cultural heritage.
Paper Abstract:
How is authenticity cultivated to foster empathy in conservation work? Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork on the Isle of Lewis, this paper examines place-making and the materiality of place to contextualize and explore the role of authenticity in the creation and mediation of tangible and intangible heritage sites and memories in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides. The Outer Hebrides is often seen as an “untouched” and isolated landscape. Thus, the values associated with a wilderness landscape as a “priceless treasure” (Li 2008, 124) is ideal for tourists to visit when they want to connect with nature and Scottish heritage. Furthermore, in the Scottish Highlands and Islands, the restructuring of industrial production to consumption through ecotourism has shaped the economic landscape of the region (Robbins and Fraser 2003). To investigate the significance of authenticity in natural and cultural heritage conservation, as well as for tourism purposes, this paper will interrogate: How is intangible heritage conceived of in heritage spaces and regional memories? What are the material dimensions of such heritage spaces? What role does authenticity play in the materiality of environmental and cultural heritage? How does this contribute to the creation of tourist spaces where authenticity is commodified? Finally, is it possible for to foster engagement with tourism that is special, meaningful, and worthwhile?
Paper Short Abstract:
The researcher leverages insights from the field observation conducted among the Kurumba community of the Kerala state in India to ascertain how indigenous communities leverage empathy as a mediating platform for peaceful co-existence with wild animals and for environmental conservation.
Paper Abstract:
Spinoza’s idea of “affectuum imitatio” can be considered to be one of the first discussions on the idea of empathy as we know today. Since then, numerous scholars such as Hume, Adam Smith, Schopenhauer, Edith Stein, and Max Scheler, have worked on the notion and have come up with an understanding of empathy. It may be defined as the feeling one imagines that another is experiencing and then feel the same emotion.(Nilsson, 2003) (Snow, 2000) (Spinoza, 2024).
Most indigenous communities around the world live in areas that are usually the worst affected by climate change. The Kurumba community from the state of Kerala, India, is one such community that reside in the hilly forest areas of the Western Ghats in Attappady of Kerala. These forests are also home to a wide variety of flora and fauna as well.
The area has been significantly affected by climate change. This has also resulted in increased contacts between wild animals and community members. Threats to the lives and livelihood of the community has been a significant result of the same. However, the community members empathise with the animals’ condition and have come up with means of peaceful co-existence.
This study envisions understanding how empathy serves as a mediating platform for environmental conservation through the case of the Kurumbas of Attappady. In this light, the researcher leverages insights from the field observation and interactions with the community members to examine how the community has used empathy for peaceful co-existence and environmental conservation.
Paper Short Abstract:
My paper draws from understanding that contemporary environmental emergency is rooted in the disconnection of two dimensions in environmental communication – our/cultural ways of thinking about an environment and how environment itself is meaningful and semiotically active (Low 2008: 48). Addressing crisis and resignation, and developing new methods for environmental communication, management, and conflict resolution, requires overcoming this disconnection. This also means we need to change how we tell the story of crisis and stories within crisis. I explore the potential of local environment-related folk narratives, or place-lore, in environmental conflict and crisis communication. While storytelling and narrative approaches have gained popularity in environmental studies and environmental humanities, discussions often scratch the surface, focusing on the discursive level and highlighting conflicting environmental representations. Instead, we must shift from a discursive to an ontological perspective and ask: Whose stories are heard? Who has a say, and why? How can stories help us break free from symbolic and cultural isolation? In environmental emergency communication, personal and subjective vernacular narratives are often sensationalized for clickbait in affect-driven media. More commonly, they are dismissed as resistance to change or NIMBYism. However, ignoring these narratives perpetuates structural slow violence and closed, hermetic environmental communication. Recognizing that local, small-scale narratives are part of environmental-related practices and embody diverse semiotic meanings—ecological and cultural—reflecting specific environments and human-nonhuman interactions (see also Kohn 2013; Whitehouse 2015), we can ask how they might help break through closed communication and disconnection (see also Päll 2024). Using cases from Estonia as examples, I show attempts to use place-lore to radically reshape environmental conflict communication by offering: 1) a way to cope with conflict or crisis by emphasizing place-identity and grounding anxiety; 2) a means to mediate, explain, and make accessible non-human umwelts through storytelling; and 3) a way to unlock creative, sustainable approaches to coping with crisis. References Kohn, E. (2013). How forests think: Toward an anthropology beyond the human. University of California Press. Low, D. (2008). Dissent and environmental communication: A semiotic approach. Semiotica, 2008(172). https://doi.org/10.1515/SEMI.2008.089 Päll, L., & Pungas-Kohv, P. (n.d.). How Can Storytelling Help Restore Mires? Applying Place-lore Fieldwork Methodology in Ecological Restoration. Environmental Communication, 0(0), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2024.2420789 Whitehouse, A. (2015). Listening to Birds in the Anthropocene: The Anxious Semiotics of Sound in a Human-Dominated World. Environmental Humanities, 6(1), 53–71. https://doi.org/10.1215/22011919-3615898
Paper Abstract:
Addressing crisis and resignation, and developing new methods for environmental communication, management, and conflict resolution, requires overcoming the disconnection of two dimensions in environmental communication – our/cultural ways of thinking about an environment and how environment itself is meaningful and semiotically active (Low 2008: 48). This also means we need to change how we tell the story of crisis and stories within crisis.
I explore the potential of local environment-related folk narratives, or place-lore, in environmental conflict and crisis communication. While storytelling and narrative approaches have gained popularity in environmental studies and environmental humanities, discussions focus on discursive level, discussing conflicting representations. Instead, we must shift from a discursive to an ontological perspective and ask: Whose stories are heard? Who has a say, and why? How can stories help us break free from symbolic and cultural isolation?
Recognizing that local, small-scale narratives are part of environmental-related practices and embody diverse semiotic meanings—ecological and cultural—reflecting specific environments and human-nonhuman interactions (see also Kohn 2013; Whitehouse 2015), we can ask how they might help break through closed communication and disconnection (see also Päll 2024).
Using cases from Estonia as examples, I show attempts to use place-lore to radically reshape environmental conflict communication by offering: 1) a way to cope with conflict or crisis by emphasizing place-identity and grounding anxiety; 2) a means to mediate, explain, and make accessible non-human umwelts through storytelling; and 3) a way to unlock creative, sustainable approaches to coping with crisis.