Speaking up for the Facts: The Communal Lives of Climate Change
About the talk:
Climate change offers an opportunity to investigate how science-based issues and predictions
come to matter for wide publics. What role media and social movements might play in
this process has largely rested on long held assumptions that privilege access to
information and science literacy. Yet, the work of diverse social groups from indigenous
leaders in the Arctic to corporate social responsibility activists in Boston demonstrate
that climate change is experienced, understood, translated, and discussed differently
in varied contexts. This talk will draw on ethnographic evidence from the newly published
book How Climate Change Comes to Matter (Duke U Press, 2014) in order to suggest that
social ties and affiliations are vital to investing climate change with particular
meanings, ethics, and morality in order to mobilize action and public engagement.
About the speaker:
Candis Callison is an assistant professor at University of British Columbia's Graduate
School of Journalism where she conducts research on media, social movements, and science
and environment issues. Candis received her Ph.D. from MIT’s Program in Science, Technology,
and Society, and previously worked in the U.S. and Canada as a journalist and producer
in broadcast and online media. She is a member of the Tahltan Nation, located in Northwestern
British Columbia, Canada.
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