CfP - Care-ful convening: towards low carbon and inclusive knowledge sharing
Care-ful convening: towards low carbon and inclusive knowledge sharing Journal of Environmental Media (6.2)
The consequences of human-induced climate change, the extinction of flora and fauna, pollution, environmental predation, and injustices are causing a spectrum of constraints, shrinkage, alteration and loss (Murphy, 2017; Elliott, 2018; Dokumaci, 2023). In response, people are figuring out how to think, communicate and act differently to account for damages done by systems whose human, more-than-human, and planetary harms are fueled by petrocultures (Chapman & Ahmed, 2021; Gomez-Barris, 2018; Táíwò, 2022). Carbon-concerned researchers, professionals, and citizens are advancing necessary shifts, including the design and implementation of alternative forms of communicating and gathering. Our call invites scholars across disciplines to explore the articulation between media and new forms of collaborative and non-extractive ways of knowledge exchange and communication.
Alternative histories of digital networks and convenings invite us to radically recenter community, care, and human needs and aspirations rather than capital accumulation, hyper-mobility, and efficiency. In addition to making arguments for what is needed and why, we are eager to illuminate what is being done and how. This callout seeks cracks and opportunities: what does care-ful convening look like considering the entanglement between platforms and the global supply chains, extractive industries, and capitalist geopolitics that have led to climate breakdown?
We find inspiration in Arseli Dokumaci's (2023) exploration of "activist affordances" that bridge disability studies with our shrinking planet, and activism that centers care (Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, 2018), pleasure (Adrienne Maree Brown, 2019) and rest (Hersey, 2022); the decolonial work carried out by The Civic Laboratory for Environmental Action Research (CLEAR) in Canada; and the praxis promoted by communities like Virtually Connecting (Caines, 2016). We are intrigued by academics who travel low and slow (Knox, 2019; Conti, 2021), and aim to decarbonize conference travel (Klöwer et al., 2020), communication systems, and research (Jekanowski, Pasek, and Elliott, 2022; Miya, Rockwell, and Rossier, 2021). We are grateful to participate in Low Carbon Research Methods Group and LIMITS initiatives for research exchange both online and off.
The constraints of just decarbonization are challenging long standing colonialist and ableist mobility norms that have propelled people to travel far and wide to connect. Now, to reduce carbon emissions (Jäckle, S., 2022; Pasek, Roehl, & Wellum, 2020), increase accessibility (Bastian, 2021; Wu et al., 2022), and mitigate the spread of COVID-19, more conferences and professional encounters are taking place online. However, while formal aspects of virtual conferences might be perceived as “better than expected” (Niner & Wasserman, 2021), a significant number of participants express concern that it is challenging to build meaningful connections in online events (Bray et al., 2022; Seidenberg et al., 2021). Contributors to this special issue will be invited to discuss the practicalities of organizing such virtual communication spaces, the philosophies and processes that animate such spaces, and their materialities.
How, to what extent, and for whom do these digital technologies change knowledge sharing? We seek contributions, taking an intersectional perspective, which showcase creative possibilities of care-ful convening without romanticizing the constraint or the ability to thrive amidst institutional scarcity and political violence. This special issue will bring to the fore grounding questions about ethics and methodologies such as: What technical, organizational, and communicative approaches will be restorative for living-beings and the planet? Who needs to be in conversation with whom, and by what media? What types of new media platforms and offline programs will challenge uneven and oppressive power dynamics that contribute to environmental harms? How do we know when something ‘works’? And more broadly, how does care-ful convening probe taken-for-granted assumptions about the “contours of ‘media’” (Brodie et al., 2023), and open out to new possibilities?
Form and Format
We welcome diverse submissions from across disciplines, and invite contributions to one of the three categories below. Authors are welcome to submit to multiple categories. We encourage collaborative submissions, particularly those that cross academic boundaries, institutional borders, and geographic locations. We are eager to accept pieces: that bring together the past, present, and future; that hold complex tensions; that showcase alternative value systems to challenge dominant modes of relating steeped in racism, patriarchy, capitalism, extractivism, and colonialism; that provoke new ways of engaging with carbon, inclusivity, and knowledge exchange; and that that inspire reflectivity, justice-driven advocacy, and care. Black and white images of any kind are welcome, including photographs, sketches and drawings, graphs and charts.
Analyze - Articles (5,000-7,000)
These are research articles and/or critically reflective essays. We are open to articles written in traditional disciplinary writing styles as well as non-traditional formats and writing styles, including first-person prose and creative essays.
Submit to the Analyze section
Then, send us an abstract up to 250 words and three keywords no later than January 15th 2024 via this submission form. Authors will be notified of the editorial team’s selections in February. Full drafts due July 1st, 2024 for peer-review. Please review The Journal of Environmental Media’s submission guidelines and submit via this form: https://forms.gle/eLh6sJCNHDsjVebc7
Actualize - Fieldnotes (500-1,500)
To examine and explore what is being done and how, these entries share documentation and reflections from media encounters that exemplify convening in more care-ful, equitable and environmentally conscious ways. Key takeaways from these experiences can be shared as instructions for alternative convenings, lessons learned, undergirding concepts, etc. Have you been to a gathering that inspired you, made you think differently, deserves some critical thought and attention? During the course of your research, have you had a convening of technology and people that surprised you, rearranged your thinking, opened up a new way to make and disseminate knowledge? We invite memories and reflections - sketches, field notes, portraits of software, diary entries.
Fantasize - Speculative Proposals (500-1,500)
We welcome visions of future convenings and forms of convening. This can be grounded in something you’d like to implement right here, right now on earth, or can suggest a speculative convening that takes place in a fantastical imaginary realm.
Submit to the Actualize or Fantasize section:
Please send the complete submission by May 15th, 2024. Submit via this form: https://forms.gle/gEWGKMTobousTQQAA
Issue 6.2 - publication October 2025 The guest editors: Antoine Hardy (Centre Emile-Durkheim), Shirley Roburn (York University), Kate Elliott (Simon Fraser University), Alexandra Lakind (American Council of Learned Societies), Elizabeth Miller (Concordia University).
If you have any question, please send an email to: antoine.hardy@scpobx.fr
