[Commlist] Call for participants for a panel on “Ideological struggles over the environment” @ Famagusta 7th International Communication and Media Studies Conference

(see also http://nicocarpentier.net/FamagustaPanel.html)

Call for participation in 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 /at/ 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


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