30630 - The Cultural Pragmatics of the Environment

Description

In the last decade, numerous works have addressed climate and environmental issues from the perspective of cultural performances and processes that generate mobilization among civil, political, and social actors, as well as popular resistance to binding environmental policies. The narrative approach to collective and individual environmental mobilizations has been particularly developed. In cultural sociology more specifically, theatrical performance, for example, has gained a place in the study of the successes and failures of major global climate conferences, as we are now celebrating the 10th anniversary of Philip Smith and Nicolas Howe’s 2015 book Climate Change as Social Drama: Global Warming in the Public Sphere (Cambridge University Press). Taking advantage of the annual ASA meeting being held in the birth city of American sociological pragmatism, Chicago, this thematic session calls for contributions that aim to bridge both the pragmatic considerations in political sociology and the ambitions of cultural sociology, by advancing the program of a “cultural pragmatics” capable of drawing, for instance, from the theories and analytical methods of Erving Goffman as well as Jeffrey Alexander (and many others). The aim will be to explore the cultural and performative dynamics of environmental action, both collective and individual, from the local to the global level, by taking as privileged fields or case studies civil society’s activist groups, state’s interventions, as well as official diplomacy and negotiations on climate, biodiversity, nature protection, or plastic pollution. Attention may also be given to mobilizations that are not directly or explicitly “political,” carried out notably through artistic performances and the dissemination of popular culture (cinema, music, song, etc.) addressing environmental themes and issues. The observable intersection between environmental issues and social or collective identities (as well as intersectionality itself) can also be highlighted.

Sub Unit

• Special Session

Presider

• Charles Simon Berthelet, University of Quebec at Montreal

Panelists

• Charles Simon Berthelet, University of Quebec at Montreal

• SYLVAINE BULLE, EHESS

• Daphne Katharina Fietz, Yale University

• Don McArthur, Monash University

Session Organizer

• Charles Simon Berthelet, University of Quebec at Montreal