As a theme, the Politics of Disagreement invited many significant problems that inhibit environmental action: climate obstruction, post-truth, conspiracy theories, extreme discrimination of women, greenwashing, right-wing political movements, and polarisation.
The Politics of Disagreement does not prescribe a solution to these problems. The lack of such a clear solution might easily have created paralysis, overwhelm at the enormity of the problems we face without a shared path for moving forward. This is not, however, what we experienced at the conference. Through critical and creative engagement, presentations, workshops and other interactive formats, the environmental communication community offered multiple ways to move:
Trace what disagreement does. Within a contested “restoration” of the Tukucha River in Kathmandu, Nepal, official communication sought to depoliticise through technical rationalities. The residents repoliticised the restoration by reframing the contested place as home with a history. Legal rulings formalised the river’s status and the terms of legitimacy. This makes visible patterns of escalation, depolitisation, and reframing that reveal what disagreement does and how it travels across communication infrastructures.
Listen to the frontlines. Researchers asked facilitators of deliberative processes how they experience post-truth dynamics in their work. Their answers emphasised the importance of joint sense making rather than one-sided fact-checking and attending to how participants sought to manipulate processes instead of condemn emotions in favour of facts. Another paper focused on Earth Uprisings to show how French radical environmentalism provides a model for positioning local communities as central political actors in social movement campaigns that build environmental justice discourse through geographically dispersed sites of contention.
Reimagine how we do disagreement. Through aikido (a martial art) practice, participants used their bodies to learn redirection rather than resistance, working with the motivations of opposition views instead of blocking or dismissing them. In another workshop that ‘composted disagreement’, participants grappled with their own investments and entanglements with discourses of modernity and how disagreement can become a way to recognise collective illusions and move towards more fertile ground for new ideas, understandings, and systems.
Critique strategic appropriation of disagreement. Analysis of Swedish environmental policy rollback points to how contemporary greenwashing portrayed previous climate policies as ineffective or socially unfair to justify rapid policy dismantling out of line with public opinion. In another session, participants experienced how public opinion tends to be very supportive of climate policies – but widespread, generalised beliefs that public attitudes towards climate policies are negative means that the existing public support is not effectively mobilised.
Foster constructive disagreement. A serious game about energy planning can be used to engage people in conflicts about energy planning and imagine possible scenarios. At the same time, workshops and presentations also identified constellations where disagreement is destructive – and cautioned that wholesale accusations of post-truth can corrode fundamental democratic structures.
These moves are not mutually exclusive, nor do they necessarily reflect the same conception of disagreement or politics. Reconciling these perspectives into a single definition of disagreement or politics was not the point. Instead, the conference as a whole reinforced that a single approach or communication practice was unlikely to provide a sufficient response to the slew of problems we face. Instead, it emphasised the need to maintain an active space for environmental governance. Sometimes this requires generating conflict that builds attention to environmental injustices; sometimes this requires deescalation and learning to move within charged conflicts.
Contemporary challenges to environmental action are substantial. We need to face them while also finding energy to move on. The Politics of Disagreement helped create a conference space where this was possible. In these times, this is a noteworthy accomplishment.
"The politics of disagreement – a conference space to make sense of turbulent times? "
As a theme, the Politics of Disagreement invited many significant problems that inhibit environmental action: climate obstruction, post-truth, conspiracy theories, extreme discrimination of women, greenwashing, right-wing political movements, and polarisation.
The Politics of Disagreement does not prescribe a solution to these problems. The lack of such a clear solution might easily have created paralysis, overwhelm at the enormity of the problems we face without a shared path for moving forward. This is not, however, what we experienced at the conference. Through critical and creative engagement, presentations, workshops and other interactive formats, the environmental communication community offered multiple ways to move:
Trace what disagreement does. Within a contested “restoration” of the Tukucha River in Kathmandu, Nepal, official communication sought to depoliticise through technical rationalities. The residents repoliticised the restoration by reframing the contested place as home with a history. Legal rulings formalised the river’s status and the terms of legitimacy. This makes visible patterns of escalation, depolitisation, and reframing that reveal what disagreement does and how it travels across communication infrastructures.
Listen to the frontlines. Researchers asked facilitators of deliberative processes how they experience post-truth dynamics in their work. Their answers emphasised the importance of joint sense making rather than one-sided fact-checking and attending to how participants sought to manipulate processes instead of condemn emotions in favour of facts. Another paper focused on Earth Uprisings to show how French radical environmentalism provides a model for positioning local communities as central political actors in social movement campaigns that build environmental justice discourse through geographically dispersed sites of contention.
Reimagine how we do disagreement. Through aikido (a martial art) practice, participants used their bodies to learn redirection rather than resistance, working with the motivations of opposition views instead of blocking or dismissing them. In another workshop that ‘composted disagreement’, participants grappled with their own investments and entanglements with discourses of modernity and how disagreement can become a way to recognise collective illusions and move towards more fertile ground for new ideas, understandings, and systems.
Critique strategic appropriation of disagreement. Analysis of Swedish environmental policy rollback points to how contemporary greenwashing portrayed previous climate policies as ineffective or socially unfair to justify rapid policy dismantling out of line with public opinion. In another session, participants experienced how public opinion tends to be very supportive of climate policies – but widespread, generalised beliefs that public attitudes towards climate policies are negative means that the existing public support is not effectively mobilised.
Foster constructive disagreement. A serious game about energy planning can be used to engage people in conflicts about energy planning and imagine possible scenarios. At the same time, workshops and presentations also identified constellations where disagreement is destructive – and cautioned that wholesale accusations of post-truth can corrode fundamental democratic structures.
These moves are not mutually exclusive, nor do they necessarily reflect the same conception of disagreement or politics. Reconciling these perspectives into a single definition of disagreement or politics was not the point. Instead, the conference as a whole reinforced that a single approach or communication practice was unlikely to provide a sufficient response to the slew of problems we face. Instead, it emphasised the need to maintain an active space for environmental governance. Sometimes this requires generating conflict that builds attention to environmental injustices; sometimes this requires deescalation and learning to move within charged conflicts.
Contemporary challenges to environmental action are substantial. We need to face them while also finding energy to move on. The Politics of Disagreement helped create a conference space where this was possible. In these times, this is a noteworthy accomplishment.