[ecrea] CFP: ‘Critical Approaches to Climate Change and Civic Action’, Frontiers in Science and Environmental Communication Journal

CFP: ‘Critical Approaches to Climate Change and Civic Action’.

Journal: Frontiers in Science and Environmental Communication
Editors: Anabela Carvalho (University of Minho, Portugal), Julie Doyle 
(University of Brighton, UK), Chris Russell (Carleton University, Canada)

Deadline: 28 February 2019

Website:https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/8382/critical-approaches-to-climate-change-and-civic-action

Overview:
In order to address climate change, much emphasis has been put on the 
need for individual behavioural change. However, as it is deeply 
embedded in political, social, and economic structures, climate change 
calls for collective action, and especially for transformative action 
aimed at the system level.
Civic initiatives for climate change have proliferated in recent years. 
These movements have emerged in diverse locations, on a variety of 
scales, and are led by different types of actors, from ‘legacy’ 
non-governmental organizations, such as Greenpeace and Friends of the 
Earth, to internet-platform projects, such as 350.org or Avaaz, to 
place-based protectors of water and land, such as the Standing Rock 
resistance.
Civic groups use diverse means and tactics, including demonstrations, 
sit-ins, climate camps, pipeline protests, and social media. Some groups 
are reclaiming structural changes in property and decision-making in 
energy systems, leading a wave of ‘energy democracy’ that brings 
together community groups, environmental organizations, and workers 
unions. Others are connecting climate change to questions of human 
security to address forced migration and refugee crises. Still others 
emphasize prefigurative politics to provoke imaginative and experimental 
forms of change. Whereas some civil society organizations pursue the 
dominant approach to ecological modernization, system-level alternatives 
have been developed, including degrowth, ‘buen vivir’ (inspired in 
indigenous movements from Central and South America), ecosocialism, 
ecofeminism, and climate justice. Numerous civic groups thus challenge 
technocratic and depoliticising discourses, and illustrate that there is 
no single option but multiple alternatives.
The civic movement for climate change is broader and more differentiated 
than contemporary scholarship usually suggests. Its interventions span 
the earth and crosscut distinctions that are usually drawn between north 
and south, between science and popular knowledge, and between 
government, civil society, and social movements. In the process, this 
movement compels us to reconsider the relationship of communication, 
power, and agency, and to view climate change communication as 
constitutive of politics, not merely as reflective of power and policy.
This Research Topic welcomes scholars to broaden our engagement with 
communication and collective action for climate change. We seek papers 
informed by critical approaches that discuss how these movements 
contribute to and spring from climate change communication. A central 
purpose for this Research Topic is a critical reconsideration of the 
concepts and approaches that shape our understanding of power and 
agency, and a sustained reflection on how different discursive 
practices/ communication enhance or inhibit political action by civic 
groupings. We therefore encourage scholars to revisit received ideas on 
public engagement, civil society, social movements, justice, and 
(post-)politics.
Papers might explore (but are not limited to):

• The importance of local knowledge, popular culture, and art in civic 
action  • Experiential and visual approaches to civic action
• The obstacles to better collaboration and solidarity between various 
civic actors
• The growing use of platforms (Facebook, Google Earth, Twitter) to 
coordinate and police activist groups
• Transnational diffusion of ideas/discourses/projects for civic action 
• The relation between collective identities and struggles on climate change
• Radical and disruptive forms of civic action/politics
• Activists’ visions for social/cultural/political transformation 
towards sustainability  • The relevance of our usual categories for 
understanding communication and power (ideology, hegemony, sovereignty, 
disciplinary power, bio-politics, violence, critique).

Manuscripts for the various categories accepted by the journal 
(https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/communication/sections/science-and-environmental-communication#article-types) 
should be submitted by February 28, 2019.

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