Link to Session Platform

Chairs(s):

Beki McElvain, University of California, Berkeley

; Yanin Kramsky, University of California, Berkeley

Description:

The importance of language and its interpretation to critical climate change research in the spatial social sciences cannot be understated. Discourses change over time. They shape and are shaped by history, are embedded in and by technology, and construct and are constructed by social forces. Critical discourse analysis is appropriate for critical climate change research because of its focus on knowledge and the way knowledge is communicated.

At its core, critical discourse analysis is an examination of relations and operations of power and ideology alongside more granular linguistic assessments of speech situations. Put differently, an analysis of macro-scale sociopolitical and economic forces is brought into interpretations of micro day-to-day talk. Critical discourse approaches bring structural forces into research interrogation rather than simply acknowledging them, and also require reflexivity from the researcher. A dimension of critical discourse analysis that is crucial to reflexive climate change research is the formation and summoning, or interpellating (à la Althusser), of differential subject positions; subjectivities that are invariably tied to structures and systems of power and ideology. The explicit agenda of critical discourse analysis is to unearth and disrupt these structural formations in order to attain more just futures (e.g. Blommaert and Bulcaen 2000; Fairclough 2015 [3rd Edition]; Hart et al. 2005; Luke 1995; Pennycook 1994; van Dijk 1993).

Critical discourse analysis is an important methodological approach for critical climate change research. A researcher can indeed elucidate crucial elements of a project using a critical discourse methodology that identifies the role of actors, and interrogates the forces that shape how knowledge is mobilized around a problem space. For example, the discursive activities of local and regional actors during relevant community or organizational meetings might note speaker order, authority, and other aspects of decision-making, with a specific focus on language (choice of words and tone—e.g. hope? crisis? community? equity? responsibility?). A scholar might advance theory and practice, as well as produce more reflexive research, by untangling the meaning, intentions, and motivations of these actors. It is language—the text and the talk—that shapes and unmakes concepts, upholds and dismantles power structures, communicates and obscures knowledge, and situates ideas in social systems.

Blommaert, J. and Bulcaen, C. (2000). Critical discourse analysis. Annual Review of Anthropology, 29, 447-466.

Fairclough, N. (2015). Language and Power. 3rd ed. London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.

Hart, C., Rymes, B., Souto-Manning, M., Brown, C., and Luke, A. (2005). Analysing Political Discourse: Toward a cognitive approach, Critical Discourse Studies, 2:2, 189-201.

Luke, A. (1995). Text and discourse in education: An introduction to critical discourse analysis. Review of Research in Education, 21(1), 3-48.

Pennycook, A. (1994). Incommensurable discourses? Applied Linguistics, 15(2), 115-138.

van Dijk, T. (1993). Principles of critical discourse analysis. Discourse & Society, 4(2), 249-283.

Non-Presenting Participants Agenda