From Limits to Buen Vivir: Communication and the Politics of Environmental Transition

Environmental communication scholars have asserted that despite the mounting ecological, social and political challenges caused by human-driven climate change, mainstream communication practices have largely constrained action by rendering an oddly depoliticized vision of environmental politics that places people in passive roles (Caravalho, van Wesser & Maeseele, 2017). This has particularly been the case in the West, where commercial media messages typically reduce environmental policy-making to technocratic, expert lead decision making, which marginalizes citizens by privileging market-based solutions “that demobilize, discourage and delimit citizen political engagement” (p. 129). In contrast to these practices, parts of the Global South have recently witnessed the forceful emergence of environmental “transition discourses” (TDs), which confront citizens with a radical rethinking of the human relationship with the earth: First, by directing attention to the unsustainable practices encouraged by models of social life that promote consumer identities, material accumulation, and the notion that perpetual growth equals progress. Second, by calling for “a profound cultural, economic, and political transformation of dominant institutions and practices” (Escobar, 2014, p. 454).  Most TDs have emerged in relation to social movements and the experiences of marginalized groups, and so are typically community and/or activist driven, culturally rooted, and action-oriented. The most salient of these are associated with the Rights of Nature, de-growth, post-development, and different forms of green radicalism (e.g., environmental justice, ecofeminism).

Murphy provides a preliminary map of the range and ontological underpinnings for TDs, and examines how they have moved beyond their place-based origins to achieve regional and even global recognition through the elaboration of alternative media networks, social media and media events designed to politicize environmental communication.