đżWild Ones #53: Environmental Communication Digest
Environmental keyword: The Phonocene + Media Hot and Cold + A Documentary on language, power and activism + more!
Hi everyone, welcome back to Wild Ones! I took a little break from the digest while making an international move and getting settled in a new country (Hawaiâi â Norway). But Iâm happy to be in Oslo now for a new postdoc position! Iâm looking forward to getting back to this weekly digest, sharing news, ideas, research, and tips in environmental communication! If youâre new, welcome! You can read more about why I started Wild Ones here. And if youâre not already signed up, you can click here to get these digests in your inbox:)
đ˛ Environmental Keyword
âPhonoceneâ
âThe fact of inscribing our time under the sign of the PhonoceneâŚis not to forget that when the earth rumbles and squeaks, it is because it also sings. It also means not forgetting that these songs are disappearing, but that they will disappear even more if we do not pay attention to themâŚâ
âThe Phonoceneâ is âthe era which connects us to the power of sound.â
â Vinciane Despret, in âLiving as a Birdâ (Habiter en Oiseau) (2022/2019).
In addition to âthe Anthropocene,â there seem to be a lot of â-cenesâ flying around as proposals to rename our current moment of global environmental crisis â Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Hellocene, Manthropocene, Misanthropocene, Anthropo-not-seen, Planthroposcene, and even the Trumpocene, to name just a few. Some have even documented up to 80 - 90 proposed names for our new era.
But do we really need another '-ceneâ, like the Phonocene?
One reason to think so is that different â-cenesâ offer different ways to frame â foreground and background â different dimensions of our social/political/ecological emergency.
From this perspective, the question isnât so much how scientifically accurate a particular â-ceneâ is (as is often the case with debate about the Anthropocene), it might be more helpful to ask: What communicative purpose does a particular â-ceneâ serve, and for whom?
For example, for environmental communicators I think itâs useful to consider how framing an environmental issue through the lens of a particular â-ceneâ can be helpful for foregrounding different aspects of the complex socio-ecological crises proliferating around the earth.
Environmental geographer Jamie Lorimer in his 2017 article, The Anthropo-scene: A guide for the perplexed, puts it like this:
âIt is useful to understand the concept of Anthropocene [and any other -cene for that matter] as a âboundary objectâ (Star, 2010) or a âcharismatic mega-categoryâ (Reddy, 2014) that enables new conversations and collaborations across significant forms of epistemic difference.â
Hereâs a blurb from a recent dialogue between philosophers Vincianne Despret and Donna Haraway about their conception of âThe Phonoceneâ and why introducing the term is important:
âThis dialogue [on the Phonocene], according to Haraway, is not about âusâ, it is about the world, about all the non-human voices that we had ceased to hear but which, due to lockdown, many of us have rediscovered. The imposed silence, she says, has allowed us to hear the sounds, and this is the first step towards trying to generate a more plural âusâ that is meaningful to a personal journey.â
In the video below (French w/English subtitles), environmental philosopher Vinciane Despret describes how the Phonocene helps bring attention to ânon-human voicesâ that often get silenced, and what communicative purpose the new name could serve in re-imagining human relations with the more-than-human world:
Some postcards from the Phonocene:
Sonic Antarctica by Environmental Sound Artist Andrea Polli: "Sonic Antarctica" features natural and industrial field recordings, sonifications and audifications of science data and interviews with weather and climate scientists.â
Sanctuaries of Silence: An immersive listening journey: âSilence just might be on the verge of extinction, and acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton believes that even the most remote corners of the globe are impacted by noise pollution.â â in Emergence Magazine
A quote by Rachel Carson from her 1965 book, The Sense of Wonder:
âSenses other than sight can prove avenues of delight and discovery, storing up for us memories and impressionsâŚHearing can be a source of even more exquisite pleasure but it requires conscious cultivationâŚ.Take time to listen and talk about the voices of the earth and what they meanâthe majestic voice of thunder, the winds, the sound of surf or flowing streams.â
I was introduced to this idea of the Phonocene in a fantastic writing workshop a few weeks ago led by multispecies scholar Thom van Dooren.
đ What Iâm reading
âYou Matter More Than You Think: Quantum Social Change for a Thriving World,â (2021) by Karen OâBrien, Professor of Human Geography at the University of Oslo in Norway. Hereâs a blurb of the book from environmental geographer Noel Castree: "Karen invites us to rethink what it means to be a living, thinking agent in our hyper-complex and troubled world. It's a hopeful book about our capacity to enact progressive change in the face of global challenges."
The Unseen as Fertile Ground for New Wisdom, by Vivien Sansour, in Mold Magazine. Vivien is the founder of the Palestine Heirloom Seed Library 2020-21 Religion, Conflict, and Peace Initiative Fellow at Harvard University
âMany of my contemporaries have challenged my âromanticâ notions to say that magic cannot buy us security and that an investment in things unseen is as scary as strolling in a minefield with a sense of denial that the earth beneath you will eventually explode. However, I have found the opposite to be true. It is in fact, our commitment to what we deem as reality that has rendered us fragile in a weak system that lacks brio and bravery.â
đ What Iâm Watching
đ Tools & Resources Iâm exploring
This cool graph from a new paper tracing how discourses about flying in Sweden have transformed since the 1950s, and how new ones â like the hashtag #JagStannarPĂĽMarken (#IStayOnTheGround) and flygskam (flight shame) â have emerged in recent years:
đ Research
âThe Low-Carbon Research Methods Group is a loosely affiliated network of scholars interested in examining how climate change not only stands to alter what we study, but how we do so.Its founding hypothesis is that an energy transition for academic methodsâlike energy transitions everywhereâoffers opportunities to re-examine long-held assumptions and to redistribute benefits and harms (for both good and for ill).â
âMedia Hot and Coldâ (2021) by Nicole Starosielski, Associate Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication at NYU.
âIn Media Hot and Cold Nicole Starosielski examines the cultural dimensions of temperature to theorize the ways heat and cold can be used as a means of communication, subjugation, and control.â Read the introduction #freeaccess (PDF).
đĄ Ideas
Itâs Not Science Fiction, Bill McKibben. âIn Kim Stanley Robinsonâs anti-dystopian novel, climate change is the crisis that finally forces mankind to deal with global inequality.â
Whatâs in the Glasgow Climate Pact? And what isnât in it but should be? By Tina Gerhardt in Sierra Magazine.
On Mistaking Whales, by Bathsheba Demuth, Assistant Professor of History and Environment and Society at Brown University:
âBefore a gray whale becomes a home, or a barrel of oil, or a metaphor, before she enters the realm of human meaning, she is a being complete in herself. Born as most gray whales are on an early January day off northwestern Mexicoâs Baja Peninsula, her mother swims upside down, tail lifted, straining up, up, and she emerges head first not into water but into the air. Two thousand pounds of smooth pewter muscle born facing the sky. For the next three months, she practices pacing her breaths, the rise to the surface that keeps her from drowning in the water that is her home. In the calm lagoons, she grows more than a ton each monthâŚâ
An interesting thread from climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe on why she doesnât bother arguing with climate âdismissivesâ:
đŹÂ Quotes Iâm thinking about
âThatâs the ruling story on this planet. We live suspended between love and ego. Maybe itâs different in other galaxies. But I doubt it.â
â Richard Powers, Bewilderment
âThe most influential messages of the twenty-first century will be sent not
through words and images but through heat and cold.â- Nicole Starosielski, in Media Hot and Cold.
Thanks so much as always for your interest in my work, and if you found this digest useful, please consider sharing with others who might find it interesting toođ I'd also love to hear from you. Leave a comment to let me know what you think about this digest, what areas of environmental communication youâre involved in/most interest you, or anything youâd like to see more of in Wild Ones:)