[Commlist] CFP: Communicating climate hope: Countering eco-anxiety and climate doomism in research and practice

Call for papers
Communicating climate hope: Countering eco-anxiety and climate doomism 
in research and practice
University of British Columbia and Tilburg University
Vancouver, BC, Canada; Tilburg, Netherlands, August 15-16, 2024

Website: https://www.climatehope2024.com
Abstract submission deadline: April 8, 2024
https://easychair.org/my/conference?conf=cch2024

About the conference
As the impacts of the climate crisis rise, we are also seeing a rise in 
eco-anxiety. Although experiencing such emotions may inspire some to 
act, for many the result is doomism, and a resulting inability to act. 
Therefore, the current Climate Hope event aims to explore the vital role 
of effective communication in fostering hope and driving positive action 
in the context of climate change.
The rise in eco-anxiety and doomism reflects a disconnect between 
understanding the climate crisis and acting to affect positive change. 
Communication plays a vital role in resolving this disconnect, aiming to 
understand the ways in which people think and talk about the problem, 
and to develop ways to promote beneficial framings and narratives that 
can contribute to positive, collective change. We see that academics 
across a range of disciplines are increasingly interested in studying 
climate literacy, effective climate communication, and positive coping 
mechanisms. However, for research to be truly impactful, it must be 
applied to real-life issues. This can be difficult for a simple reason – 
academics do not always talk to people outside the academic world, even 
though they are probably working on similar questions. Therefore, the 
current event aims to bring together scholars, communication 
professionals, activists, artists and change-makers in a two-day 
conference on the communication of climate hope.

Although we very much welcome participants from a wide range of 
disciplines to the conference, we focus on the following disciplines in 
this call for submissions: academics working on climate hope; artists 
who produce art in this direction; and community-oriented activists 
seeking to foster climate hope in the public sphere. We aim to organize 
sessions where perspectives meet, to learn from each other, and to find 
out how academia, art, and activism can strengthen each other. As can be 
read below, the specific submission guidelines are different for 
academics and artists/activists.

Venues
The Climate Hope conference has a “distributed-hybrid” design, which 
means that it will be held in-person at two local hubs: one in Europe 
(Tilburg University, the Netherlands), and one in North America 
(University of British Columbia – Vancouver, Canada). This distributed 
design allows for small group engagement and enables more sustainable 
local travel. The hybrid design enables collaboration at-a-distance, 
allowing real-time and asynchronous communication between hubs and with 
remote participants. Participants can indicate in which location they 
will attend the conference. At Tilburg the conference will be located 
at Mindlabs and at UBC it will be at Green College.

Both local hubs will have a combination of plenary talks by invited 
speakers; regular presentations (20 minutes + 10 minutes for 
discussion); and academic poster presentations combined with 
non-academic exhibitions.

Potential topics of the conference may include, but are not limited to:
• Building Climate Resilience through Communication
• Climate Art and Creativity
• Climate Hope and Resiliency in Literary Spaces
• Environmental Humanities
• Environmental Journalism
• Narratives and (Interactive) Storytelling
• Visual, Multimedia, and Multimodal Climate Messaging
• Climate Activism
• Science Communication and Public Understanding
• Climate Hope Campaigns and Initiatives
• Audience Characteristics and Inclusive Climate Communication
• Indigenous Perspectives on Climate Hope
• Social Media and Online Communities
• Psychology of Climate Doom, Eco-Anxiety, and Eco-Paralysis
• Linguistic Analysis of Climate Communication
• Ecolinguistics

Invited Speakers: University of British Columbia
• Teenie Matlock, University of California Merced, USA
• Naoko Ellis and Derek Gladwin, University of British Columbia, 
Vancouver, Canada
• Ashley Fairbanks, Creative Director, 100% Campaign, Minnesota, USA

Invited Speakers: Tilburg University
• Noëlle Aarts, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
• Reyer Gerlagh, Tilburg University, The Netherlands
• Jenny Pickerill, University of Sheffield, United Kingdom

Contact
General questions should be emailed to (contact /at/ climatehope2024.com).
Location-specific questions should be emailed 
to (tilburg /at/ climatehope2024.com) for Tilburg University 
or (ubc /at/ climatehope2024.com) for the University of British of Columbia.

Submission Guidelines: Academic Contributions
Submissions for academic contributions should be an anonymized abstract 
(maximum 500 words, not including references), submitted as a PDF file. 
Interdisciplinary, multi-authored submissions are highly welcomed. 
Submissions must be written in English, and the abstracts will undergo a 
peer-review process. After acceptance, abstracts will be published open 
access on the conference website.

Submission Guidelines: Artwork and Activism Contributions
Artists and activists/community organizers can contribute to the Climate 
Hope conference in three ways:
1 Artists can exhibit one or more pieces of climate art in a session 
mixed with academic poster presentations and organization exhibitions, 
where participants in the conference walk by and discuss with the 
artists about their work.
2 Activists can exhibit their organization’s work in a session mixed 
with academic poster presentations and artwork exhibitions, where 
participants in the conference walk by and discuss with the activists 
about their organization’s work.
3 They can apply for a regular presentation, where they do not only 
exhibit one or more pieces of art and/or organizing stories, but also 
explain the background of this work; the messages it wants to convey; 
how it fits into their complete body of work; what inspires them as an 
artist/activist; how they see the role of art/activism in the climate 
crisis; etc.

Submission Instructions: Artwork Contributions
We define climate art broadly to include not only artwork, but also 
works in design, craft, and illustration. The binding principle is that 
the work is created primarily to contribute to the climate debate. Works 
may include, but are not limited to: drawings, design, handcrafts, 
illustrations, computer graphics, film, paintings, prints, sculptures, 
and textiles. The selections of artworks will be determined by a panel 
of artists.

All submissions should be made electronically via email to the local 
conference email address 
((tilburg /at/ climatehope2024.com) or (ubc /at/ climatehope2024.com)), along with 
information about the artists name, contact details, the title of 
artwork (if any), and a clear picture of the artwork. Images should be 
JPEG files with a dimension of at least 1800 pixels and no more than 
2400 pixels in the larger direction, saved with maximum quality within 
these constraints. Should a URL be more convenient for submission than 
an image, for example due to the nature of the artwork, please provide 
this URL clearly in your submission e-mail.

Submission Instructions: Activism Contributions
Activists/community organizations interested in participating should 
contact the conference organizers directly 
at (tilburg /at/ climatehope2024.com) or (ubc /at/ climatehope2024.com) by the 
submission deadline to discuss how their work can be best incorporated 
into the conference.
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