CfP: Communication and Sustainability Special Issue of Environmental Communication Journal

Special Issue of Environmental Communication: A Journal of
Nature and Culture Volume 5, Issue 1 (2012)

Communication and Sustainability:  Exploring Intersections of Science, Policy, Action,
and Culture

Editors: Harald Heinrichs (Leuphana Universität Lüneburg) and Laura Lindenfeld
(University of Maine)

This special issue emerges from the perspective that communication research and practice
should play a more prominent role in sustainability science.  The collection of essays
will consider the ways in which communication scholarship and practice can and should
contribute to sustainability science as part of larger global sustainable development
efforts.

RATIONALE

Cox’s articulation of environmental communication as a crisis discipline recognizes
the constitutive and normative role of communication in the definition of environmental
problems, and it provides an ethical basis for recognizing, predicting, and addressing
environmental problems (2007).  As such, this articulation calls for different ways of
thinking about and doing communication.  Cox’s call to action suggests a model for
environmental communication that features innovative linkages between research and
practice as well as increased collaboration with other fields.  Whether defined as the
process of linking the production of knowledge with action, collaborative learning, or
the co-construction of knowledge, this approach to environmental communication
scholarship aims to render the research process more salient, legitimate, and credible
to stakeholders and communities who require research for decision making.

Sustainability science is an emerging trans-disciplinary area that draws upon similar
assumptions about the criticality of action-oriented scholarship in addressing global
environmental concerns and their linkages to social and economic activities, as well as
the need to bring scholars, communities, and stakeholders from diverse backgrounds
together.  Part of a larger sustainability studies project, sustainability science aims
to develop, shape, and maintain resilient ecological, economic, and social systems
through an inter- and trans-disciplinary, action-oriented approach to research and
praxis (see, for example, issues of the new journal Sustainability Science, published by
Springer).

The goals of sustainability science converge with the type of practice-oriented research
that many environmental communication scholars do. Yet, communication as a field has
often been underrepresented in sustainability science research teams and programs around
the world.  This special issue provides an opportunity to make a case for the centrality
of environmental communication in advancing – and, when needed, in critiquing –
sustainability science and the global sustainability studies initiative.

CALL FOR PAPERS

This call for papers seeks empirically and critically focused essays as well as
conceptual papers that build on the concept of environmental communication as a crisis
discipline and a solutions-oriented, reflexive discipline crisis framework by exploring
a variety of topics, including:

•     The various roles communication plays and should play within sustainability
studies and sustainability science, e.g.:
a.      Communication in complex interdisciplinary collaboration
b.      Communication in the production of knowledge about sustainability as a process
of co-construction by communities and universities
c.      Communication in the analysis of sustainability science solutions to local and
global environmental/sustainability issues and concerns

•     The various roles communication plays and might play within sustainability
practice, e.g.:
d.      (new) media communication on sustainability,
e.      sustainability marketing,
f.      political communication on sustainability
g.      communication in formal and informal education for sustainability
h.      (Interpersonal) Communication in participation and cooperation for sustainability

•     Critiques of communication research and practice in sustainability science and
sustainability practice

Manuscripts should be prepared in English, and should not exceed 8,000 words including
references.  We are prepared to offer additional editorial assistance for manuscripts
that examine the intersection of sustainability and communication in non-English
speaking regions. The journal adheres to APA Style. Manuscripts must not be under review
elsewhere or have appeared in any other published form. For further details on
manuscript submission, please refer to the ‘Instructions for authors’ on the
journal’s website
(http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~db=all~content=t770239508~tab=sub...). Upon
notification of acceptance, authors must assign copyright to Taylor and Francis and
provide copyright clearance for any copyrighted material.
Manuscripts should be emailed to laura.lindenfeld AT umit.maine.edu by March 31, 2011.