Panel call on “Ideological struggles over the environment” - reminder deadline 1 February

(see also http://nicocarpentier.net/FamagustaPanel.html)
Call for a panel on “Ideological struggles over the environment”
at the 7th International Communication and Media Studies Conference “Peace-ing it Together: Reconsidering Communication, Community and the Media in the Anthropocene”
4-6 April 2024 in Famagusta, Northern Cyprus

Convenor: Nico Carpentier, Charles University and Tallinn University

The environment is predominantly approached from materialist perspectives, while the processes in relation to the construction of meaning—arguably—still merit more attention. How humans define, articulate and communicate (about) the environment, in other words, the environment’s discursive dimension, remains crucial when attempting to gain a better understanding of the environment and human-nature relationships.

Moreover, also the intersection of these material and discursive components in relationship to the environment, an entanglement which is ultimately contingent, deserves to be highlighted more, together with the environment’s agentic capacity to dislocate the discourses that humans create in order to make sense of it.

The discursive-material assemblage of the environment is not single, homogeneous and stable, though. For one, different discourses—or ideologies—compete with each other over how the environment needs to be signified, often structured through the confrontation between anthropocentrism and ecocentrism. These discursive-ideological struggles are characterized by different modes of conflict, including antagonistic and agonistic ones, which can apply to how different actors interact with each other, but also how some discourses incorporate (and legitimate) a relation of violence between human animals, non-human animals and abiotic material. Moreover, how the environment responds to the challenges posed by its human inhabitants can be approached from the perspective of these antagonistic and agonistic modes of conflict, as Gaia sometimes does strike back.

This panel at the 7th International Communication and Media Studies Conference in Famagusta (Cyprus) will address the complexities of the multitude of ideological struggles over the environment, in connection to different approaches, including environmental communication, environmental discourse studies and environmental conflict studies.

Papers could potentially discuss one or the following issues, although also other issues and approaches will be considered:
-confrontation between anthropocentrism and ecocentrism
-antagonistic and agonistic variations of these struggles (and their materializations)
-symbolic and material violence against non-human animals, and resistance from Gaia
-symbolic and material violence towards Gaia, driven by e.g. extractivism, and resistance from Gaia
-representations of these ideological struggles in fields of media, politics, sports and education
-post-anthropocentric futures of peaceful co-habitation

If you would like to participate in this panel, please submit your individual abstract, with a word length of between 300 and 500 words, to the panel’s convenor, Nico Carpentier, by email at nico.carpentier@fsv.cuni.cz.

The deadline for abstract submissions to the “Ideological struggles over the environment” panel is 1 February 2024.

Presentations in this panel are expected to have a duration of 15 minutes, and will be face-to-face. Proposals for virtual panel presentations can unfortunately not be accepted.

Participants who have not been selected for the panel on “Ideological struggles over the environment” can be considered for other panels at the 7th International Communication and Media Studies Conference in Famagusta, if they wish.

More information about the 7th International Communication and Media Studies Conference in Famagusta can be found at EMU’s Center of Research and Communication for Peace, at https://crcp.emu.edu.tr/en/conference-2024/call-for-papers