Environmental Discourse (Notes by Mahesh Paudyal)

Classroom notes of John Hannigan's essay "Environmental Discourse

What is discourse?

Hajer (1995: 264) defines discourse as ‘a specific ensemble of ideas, concepts and categorizations that is produced, reproduced and transformed in a particular set of practices and through which meaning is given to physical and social realities’. Or, put more succinctly, discourse is an interrelated set of ‘story-lines’ which interprets the world around us and which becomes deeply embedded in societal institutions, agendas and knowledge claims. These story-lines have a triple mission: to create meaning and validate action, to mobilize action, and to define alternatives.

Environmental Discourse

            Visualized in three basic ways:

·         as a story-line that provides signpost for ACTION

·         as a social movement frame that provides framework for social MOVEMENT

·         as an environmental RHETORIC, constructed around words, images, concepts and practices.

Different typologies of Environmental Discourse

1.         Herndl and Brown (1996): Regulatory Discourse, Scientific Discourse Poetic Discourse

2.         Bruell (2000): Nine distinct discourses: manifest destiny, wildlife management, conservation, preservation, reform environmentalism, deep ecology, environmental justice, ecofeminism and ecotheology

3.         John Dryzek (2005): four discourses: Survivalism, Environmental Problem-solving, Sustainability and Green Radicalism.

4.         John Hannigan (2006): three discourses: Arcadian Discourse, Ecosystem Discourse, and Environmental Justice Discourse

Archardian Discourse (Poetic Discourse)

o   Van Koppen (1998) identifies three features: externality, ionization and complementarity

o   Simon Schama (1996) identified two kinds of arcadia: one infused by lightness and bucolic leisure, and the other darker and a place of primitive panic. Together, they make the 'Back to nature movement)

o   Back to nature movement

o   With these changes outlook, the concept of wilderness changed from a threat, as conceived earlier, to a precious resource later.

Ecosystem Discourse (Scienfitic Discourse)

o       The term 'ecology' was officially coined in 1866 under the name Oecologie by Ernst Haeckel. By ecology, he meant the science of relations between organisms and their environments.

o       Plant ecology developed after Eugenius Warming published his work Plantsomfund (The Oecology of Plants) in 1895. Warming's central thesis was plants and animals in natural settings such as a heath or a hardwood forest, form one linked and interwoven community in which change at one point will bring in its wake far-reaching changes at other points.

o       Bramwell (1998) hypothesizes that two strands of ecology emerged from this period: anti-mechanistic (holistic) approach to biology, and second energy economics that focuses on scarce and non-renewable resources. Fusion of the two gave rise to modern ecology. From here, ecosystem discourse took grounds.

o       British ecologist Tansely coined the word 'ecosystem', which he described in terms of an exchange of energy and nutrients within a natural system.

Environmental Justice Discourse

o       Legal discourse, started in the 1980's in America

o       Lays out a set of claims concerning toxic contamination in terms of civil right of those affected, rather than in terms of the right of nature

o       Capek (1993) identifies four major components of this environmental justice frame: the right to obtain information about one’s situation; the right to a serious hearing when contamination claims are raised; the right to compensation from those who have polluted a particular neighborhood; and the right of democratic participation in deciding the future of the contaminated community.

o       This discourse was a result of the hostility by urban blacks in the US to the siting of toxic landfills

o       In 1987, the Commission for Racial Justice of the United Church of Christ issued a report "Toxic Waste and Race in the United States". It revealed three out of five black Americans live in communities with uncontrolled toxic waste sites.

o       Robert Bullard (1979), in his book Dumping in Dixie, cited, that toxic dumping sites in American are located in black and Hispanic settlement areas.

o       Bunyan Bryant and Paul Mohai (1990) organized a conference on Race and the Incidence of Environmental Hazards at Mechigan University. After this, a series of such meetings were organized with the government.

o       Under the sponsorship of the Commission for Racial Justice, the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit was held in October 1991 in Washington, DC. At this gathering, three strands of environmental equity were identified (Lee 1992); procedural equity (governing rules, regulations and evaluation criteria to be applied uniformly), geographic equity (some neighborhoods, communities and regions are disproportionately burdened by hazardous waste) and social equity (race, class and other cultural factors must be recognized in environmental decision-making). Delegates to the Summit ratified a document, Principles of Environmental Justice, which sets out the ideological framework of the emerging environmental justice movement. Taylor (2000: 537–42) organizes these principles into six thematic components that deal with ecological principles; justice and environmental rights; autonomy/self-determination; corporate–community relations; policy, politics and economic processes; and social movement building.