Fridays for Future, Extinction Rebellion and Sunrise Movement are among the new climate movements... more Fridays for Future, Extinction Rebellion and Sunrise Movement are among the new climate movements that have come into the public spotlight since 2019. While their successes in agenda-setting are undisputed, conclusions vary on whether and how this re-politicizes climate discourses. This article presents a new framework to analyze the dynamics of (de-)politicization along the dimensions of vision, agency and process. Based on a narrative analysis, we compare US movement and media documents from 2019 and identify five key narratives, namely, ‘Evidence First,’ ‘Intergenerational Divide,’ ‘Climate Justice & Intersectionality,’ ‘System Change’ and ‘Political Fight.’ While all movements use politicizing notions, we find that tensions between the dimensions inhibit the articulation of alternative visions of the future. This overall depoliticizing tendency appears to be rooted in process understandings that originate in dominant discursive framings of climate change and of science–policy interfaces – a finding that is informative for climate discourses in general.
Climate research has established a cultural authority in modelling our future with climate change... more Climate research has established a cultural authority in modelling our future with climate change, and often uses a harmful impacts frame to communicate about climate change and climate futures. This paper investigates the social constructions of climate futures by analyzing how the harmful impacts frame resonates and is reframed in three social arenasnews media, climate movements, and local communities. Data for this study stems from a larger interdisciplinary project, drawing from content analyses, participant observations, interviews, and a survey. The findings highlight that news media and climate movements reframed the harmful impacts frame only slightly, mostly to generate attention. Members of local communities reframed to a greater extent, making stronger applications to their lifeworlds. The study also points to a lack of connections across the social arenas. Implications for climate change communication will be discussed.
Societies are becoming increasingly aware that they owe their emergence, wealth and industrialisa... more Societies are becoming increasingly aware that they owe their emergence, wealth and industrialisation to their influence as a geophysical force. Social and environmental scientists have analysed the genesis of this self-reflection and pointed to past failures that have led to this predicament. Following the gradually beginning research on differing temporalities, temporal practices and time regimes in the climate change discourse, this article shifts the perspective from past obstacles to possibilities for shaping the future. We historically reconstruct the emergence of interfaces of future co-production and theorise how these enable the imagination, communication and negotiation of climate futures. We conceptualise (1) world organisations as permanent interfaces of future co-production that bring together disparate temporal perspectives, (2) world events as temporary settings that accelerate the production of climate futures, and (3) world objects as mobile webs of meaning that travel between social worlds.
Introduction: Extinction Rebellion (XR) is one of the central players in climate movements in the... more Introduction: Extinction Rebellion (XR) is one of the central players in climate movements in the United Kingdom. Considering the historical relationship that environmentalists have had with science and scientific knowledge, we examine the current treatment of science in the narrative put forward by XR United Kingdom.
Methods: Using mixed qualitative methods, the group's online press releases for the year 2019 were analysed, alongside fieldwork from 2 weeks spent at the United Nations' climate conference in Glasgow in 2021. The fieldwork data consists of participant observation combined with semi-structured interviews.
Results: The movement's demand to “tell the truth” utilises a narrative established on a fact-based enlightenment. This is complemented by notions of a fixed temporal deadline and predicted societal collapse. We highlight prominent perspectives that came to light and identify three main positions that the activists held with respect to science.
Discussion: The findings show the positioning of science and scientific knowledge as a supreme authority, which acts to depoliticize the discourse and induces reductionism in imagining climate futures. This positioning, combined with the centrality of apocalyptic imagery, hampers the construction of alternative futures and fails to engage meaningfully with climate justice.
Following Greta Thunberg's school strike in Stockholm in August 2018 and the October 2018 'declar... more Following Greta Thunberg's school strike in Stockholm in August 2018 and the October 2018 'declaration of rebellion' by activists in the UK, 2019 saw several climate protest movements rise to public attention, including Fridays for Future (FFF), Extinction Rebellion (XR), and the US Sunrise Movement. What is striking about them is that they rather bluntly refer to science in their campaigns. In this paper, we present an in-depth and comparative study of how the new climate protest movements relate to scientific evidence. Employing a narrative analysis of different types of data (websites, press releases, and media coverage), we study the movements' understandings of 'the science' as well as of science's role in policy processes. We find that the movements in their initial phase predominantly rely on science for their legitimation and adopt a scientific worldview with very little 'green ambivalence'. Notably, FFF and XR hold a deficit model of existing climate communication and enact roles as science communicators.
Redes. Revista De Estudios Sociales De La Ciencia Y La Tecnología, 2022
Este artículo busca contribuir a las discusiones cada vez más frecuentes sobre las transformacion... more Este artículo busca contribuir a las discusiones cada vez más frecuentes sobre las transformaciones intelectuales, personales y emocionales que experimentan con cada nuevo proyecto de investigación y colaboración quienes realizan trabajo de campo etnográfico en el marco de los Estudios Sociales de la Ciencia y la Tecnología (ESCyT). A partir de la experiencia de investigar 'insertas' (embedded) en grandes proyectos colaborativos de las ciencias del cambio global, del clima y ambientales, las autoras proponemos la noción de 'devenir' (becoming) para capturar las transformaciones positivas generales que experimentan las/los etnógrafas/os, transformaciones que van más allá de la comprensión un tanto estática y unidimensional que surge del recurso a la noción de ' roles', de uso frecuente en la literatura especializada. Concluimos con algunas observaciones sobre las transformaciones o 'devenires' que también nuestros colaboradores experimentan.
In recent years, a new wave of climate activist groups, such as Extinction Rebellion, Fridays for... more In recent years, a new wave of climate activist groups, such as Extinction Rebellion, Fridays for Future and the Sunrise Movement have reshaped public debates on climate action. In so doing they refer to scientific evidence. But, how exactly do they understand science’s relationship to society? Drawing on documentary evidence, Simone Rödder argues that the use of evidence by these groups, especially the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), reflects an effective form of science communication, albeit one that leaves hierarchies of scientific knowledge largely intact.
Tsunamis are natural hazards that can have devastating societal impacts. While tsunamis cannot be... more Tsunamis are natural hazards that can have devastating societal impacts. While tsunamis cannot be prevented, their risk to coastal communities can be mitigated through targeted measures such as early warning, evacuation training or tsunami-aware spatial planning. The particularities of tsunamis–being rare events with high impact and a short yet operable time span for warning–structure the associated research approaches and sociotechnical innovations. In this paper, we explore interdisciplinary knowledge integration and stakeholder engagement in tsunami science based on interviews with researchers from various tsunami-related fields. We find that the interviewees’ academic identities are typically grounded in a disciplinary core, out of which they subsequently cross boundaries. For all respondents, however, it is a matter of course that becoming and being a member of the tsunami community includes the need to communicate across boundaries. Our results show that the idea of early warning unites the tsunami field. Notably, however, it is not the material technology but the political goal of effective early warning that holds an integrative function across disciplines. Furthermore, we find modelling to be seen as the “backbone of everything” tsunami-related, which in combination with visualisation techniques such as a global map of tsunami risks also serves to integrate stakeholders beyond the tsunami research community. Interviewees mention the interaction between scientists and engineers as the exemplary interdisciplinary collaboration in tsunami science. There were fewer examples of collaborations with social scientists, rendering this a demand rather than a lived reality in current tsunami science. Despite the widely shared view that stakeholder engagement is an important element of tsunami science, respondents emphasise the associated challenges and indicate that this practice is not yet sufficiently institutionalised.
The working paper examines the UN climate conference (COP26) organised in Glasgow in November 202... more The working paper examines the UN climate conference (COP26) organised in Glasgow in November 2021 as a transnational mega-event, which constituted not only an important moment in international climate talks, but also a temporary convergence point for a multitude of actors and an arena for conflicts and contestation over framing within a broader global policy space. This perspective allows us to offer a view of the current state of global climate politics more comprehensive than those of analyses focused mainly on the negotiations. Using collaborative event ethnography, over two weeks eight researchers identified the material, spatial and social dimensions of the conference. We identify three circles of climate governance, which framed practices, interactions and debates in Glasgow. These comprise an inner circle of state-led negotiations (‘The In’), an official side programme (‘The Off’) and a relatively heterogeneous wider environment of self-organised events (‘The Fringe’). Each circle is populated by a different set of actors and enacts a distinct representation of ‘the global’. Our analysis of dynamics within each of these circles shows that climate governance has entered a new and contradictory phase, where some boundaries are blurred while others are reaffirmed, and where old conflicts resurface while new dividing lines appear. The Paris architecture for reporting and review has been finalised, but thus far the new approach has failed to close gaps between pledges and objectives for mitigation and climate finance. Global political and corporate elites have seemingly come to acknowledge the climate emergency and the need for a global low-carbon transformation, but the solutions proposed in Glasgow remained partial and fragile, and tightly contained within the dominant horizon of capitalist market- and techno-fixes. The communication strategy of the UNFCCC and the UK Presidency used increasingly radical terms to convey urgency and momentum, which in turn risked emptying activist notions of their content and force. A growing part of the climate movement reacted with critiques of corporate takeover and calls for “real zero” instead of “net zero”. In the conclusion, we examine a series of contentious issues and provide avenues for reflection on the future of climate governance.
Allg. Forschungsberichte, Universität Hamburg, 2022
Tsunamis are natural hazards that can have devastating societal impacts. While tsunamis cannot be... more Tsunamis are natural hazards that can have devastating societal impacts. While tsunamis cannot be prevented, their risk to coastal communities can be mitigated through targeted measures such as early warning, evacuation training or tsunami-aware spatial planning. The particularities of tsunamis – being rare events with high impact and a short yet operable time span for warning – structure the associated research approaches and sociotechnical innovations. In this paper, we explore interdisciplinary knowledge integration and stakeholder engagement in tsunami science based on interviews with researchers from the EU COST action “Accelerating Global science In Tsunami HAzard and Risk analysis”(AGITHAR). We find that the interviewees’ academic identities are typically grounded in a disciplinary core, out of which they subsequently cross boundaries. For all respondents, however, it is a matter of course that becoming and being a member of the tsunami community includes the need to communicate across boundaries. Our results show that the idea of early warning unites the tsunami field. Notably, however, it is not the material technology but the political goal of effective early warning that holds an integrative function across disciplines. Furthermore, we find modelling to be seen as the “backbone of everything” tsunami related, which in combination with visualisation techniques such as a global map of tsunami risks also serves to integrate stakeholders beyond the tsunami research community. Interviewees mention the interaction between scientists and engineers as the exemplary interdisciplinary collaboration in tsunami science. There were fewer examples of collaborations with social scientists, rendering this a demand rather than a lived reality in current tsunami science. Despite the widely shared view that stakeholder engagement is an important element of tsunami science, respondents emphasise the associated challenges and indicate that this practice is not yet sufficiently institutionalised.
Academic air travel (AAT) is increasingly critiqued for its carbon emissions. Based on an initial... more Academic air travel (AAT) is increasingly critiqued for its carbon emissions. Based on an initial interest in the relevance, persistence and change of climate-impacting practices like AAT as part of global academic interaction and collaboration, this paper presents a literature review to take stock of existing research on AAT. A two-step literature search was conducted, resulting in a range of relevant publications (N=220). The following areas of interest were identified: first, the relevance that academic travel has in the development of the research university and the international connectivity of modern science. Second, functions of meetingness and physical copresence in the context of academic communication, scientific exchange and networking appear as the main drivers of AAT, yet characteristics of the academic career system and labour market as well as tourism aspects play a role, too. Third, discourses around AAT focus on the perceived obligation to fly (“fly or die”), its politicisation with regard to the inequality of access, and justifications for upholding current (pre Covid-19) rates of AAT. Fourth, AAT is increasingly critically discussed in the context of climate change (climatisation). Fifth, alternatives to AAT are discussed, ranging from the use of virtual meetings and the re-organisation of academic conferences to more fundamental changes in the mode of research practices. The review was started before the Covid-19 pandemic brought AAT to an abrupt halt, a situation that now makes researching this social practice particularly timely. We thus conclude that AAT is an emerging and promising area for future research.
Im Diskurs um Nachhaltigkeit fehlt bislang eine spezifisch soziologische Perspektive. Gerade ang... more Im Diskurs um Nachhaltigkeit fehlt bislang eine spezifisch soziologische Perspektive. Gerade angesichts der Vielfalt des Diskurses kann eine "Soziologie der Nachhaltigkeit" jedoch unterschied-liche Perspektiven aufeinander beziehen und kritisch auf implizite Prämissen reflektieren. Eine spezifische Herausforderung liegt für die Soziologie darin, sich zu der Problemorientierung sowie zum normativen Charakter der Nachhaltigkeit zu positionieren. Dieser Beitrag macht den Vorschlag, die Perspektivenviel-falt der Soziologie als Stärke zu betrachten, die es angesichts der parallelen Vielfalt der Nachhaltigkeit produktiv zu machen gilt. Als soziologische Zugänge zur Nachhaltigkeitsdebatte gelten dabei solche Ansätze, die sich zur Gleichzeitigkeit von Beobachtungs-und Transformationsorientierung verhalten und-ob mit bereichsspezifischem oder gesellschaftstheoretischem Fokus-zu durchaus pluralen Vermittlungsvor-schlägen kommen. Explorativ mit Blick auf das Feld einer Soziologie der Nachhaltigkeit werden fünf derartige Vorschläge exemplarisch vorgestellt: doing sustainability, eine feldtheoretische Analyse, ein wissenschaftssoziologischer Beitrag, epistemische Go-vernance und eine gesellschaftstheoretische Reflexion. Wir verstehen dies als Auftakt für eine Diskussion der "Soziologie der Nachhaltigkeit".
Local discourses around the world draw on multiple resources to make sense of a "travelling idea”... more Local discourses around the world draw on multiple resources to make sense of a "travelling idea” such as climate change, including direct experiences of extreme weather, mediated reports, educational NGO activities, and pre-existing values and belief systems. There is no simple link between scientific literacy, climate change awareness, and a sustainable lifestyle, but complex entanglements of transnational and local discourses and of scientific and other (religious, moral etc.) ways of making sense of climate change. As the case studies show, this entanglement of ways of sense-making results in both localizations of transnational discourses and the climatization of local discourses: aspects of the travelling idea of climate change are well-received, integrated, transformed, or rejected. Our comparison reveals a major factor that shapes the local appropriation of the concept of anthropogenic climate change: the fit of prior local interpretations, norms and practices with travelling ideas influences whether they are likely to be embraced or rejected.
Das politische Leitbild Nachhaltiger Entwicklung mit seiner integralen Verknüpfung von globalen ö... more Das politische Leitbild Nachhaltiger Entwicklung mit seiner integralen Verknüpfung von globalen ökologischen und sozialen Problemlagen und der darin liegenden Vision ihrer Lösung, stiftete für eine Soziologie der Nachhaltigkeit nicht nur den Anlass, sondern zugleich eine dezidierte normative Orientierung. Inzwischen beobachten wir allerdings eine Veralltäglichung und Pluralisierung von Nachhaltigkeit, sodass nicht mehr umstandslos die Gültigkeit einer geteilten normativen Prämisse voraussetzt werden kann. Die von K.-W. Brand ins Gespräch gebrachte Kennzeichnung einer „zweiten Welle“ soziologischer Nachhaltigkeitsforschung greifen wir auf, ohne aber die Normativität des Brundtland’schen Nachhaltigkeitsbegriffs als Prämisse zu setzen, sondern um für die schon in der „ersten Welle“ aufscheinende Reflexivität als Integrationspunkt zu argumentieren. Zur Untersuchung von Nachhaltigkeitsphänomenen stellen wir eine entsprechende Heuristik vor. Gewendet als Forschungsprogramm kann dies den Kern einer von Brand in den Raum gestellten „zweiten Welle“ der Soziologie der Nachhaltigkeit darstellen.
Leviathan : Berliner Zeitschrift für Sozialwissenschaft, 2021
Wir sprechen uns in unserer Replik dafür aus, die Pluralität soziologischer Perspektiven auch und... more Wir sprechen uns in unserer Replik dafür aus, die Pluralität soziologischer Perspektiven auch und gerade für den Gegenstandsbereich Nachhaltigkeit als Vorteil zu sehen und den Diskurs entsprechend zu gestalten.
Fridays for Future, Extinction Rebellion and Sunrise Movement are among the new climate movements... more Fridays for Future, Extinction Rebellion and Sunrise Movement are among the new climate movements that have come into the public spotlight since 2019. While their successes in agenda-setting are undisputed, conclusions vary on whether and how this re-politicizes climate discourses. This article presents a new framework to analyze the dynamics of (de-)politicization along the dimensions of vision, agency and process. Based on a narrative analysis, we compare US movement and media documents from 2019 and identify five key narratives, namely, ‘Evidence First,’ ‘Intergenerational Divide,’ ‘Climate Justice & Intersectionality,’ ‘System Change’ and ‘Political Fight.’ While all movements use politicizing notions, we find that tensions between the dimensions inhibit the articulation of alternative visions of the future. This overall depoliticizing tendency appears to be rooted in process understandings that originate in dominant discursive framings of climate change and of science–policy interfaces – a finding that is informative for climate discourses in general.
Climate research has established a cultural authority in modelling our future with climate change... more Climate research has established a cultural authority in modelling our future with climate change, and often uses a harmful impacts frame to communicate about climate change and climate futures. This paper investigates the social constructions of climate futures by analyzing how the harmful impacts frame resonates and is reframed in three social arenasnews media, climate movements, and local communities. Data for this study stems from a larger interdisciplinary project, drawing from content analyses, participant observations, interviews, and a survey. The findings highlight that news media and climate movements reframed the harmful impacts frame only slightly, mostly to generate attention. Members of local communities reframed to a greater extent, making stronger applications to their lifeworlds. The study also points to a lack of connections across the social arenas. Implications for climate change communication will be discussed.
Societies are becoming increasingly aware that they owe their emergence, wealth and industrialisa... more Societies are becoming increasingly aware that they owe their emergence, wealth and industrialisation to their influence as a geophysical force. Social and environmental scientists have analysed the genesis of this self-reflection and pointed to past failures that have led to this predicament. Following the gradually beginning research on differing temporalities, temporal practices and time regimes in the climate change discourse, this article shifts the perspective from past obstacles to possibilities for shaping the future. We historically reconstruct the emergence of interfaces of future co-production and theorise how these enable the imagination, communication and negotiation of climate futures. We conceptualise (1) world organisations as permanent interfaces of future co-production that bring together disparate temporal perspectives, (2) world events as temporary settings that accelerate the production of climate futures, and (3) world objects as mobile webs of meaning that travel between social worlds.
Introduction: Extinction Rebellion (XR) is one of the central players in climate movements in the... more Introduction: Extinction Rebellion (XR) is one of the central players in climate movements in the United Kingdom. Considering the historical relationship that environmentalists have had with science and scientific knowledge, we examine the current treatment of science in the narrative put forward by XR United Kingdom.
Methods: Using mixed qualitative methods, the group's online press releases for the year 2019 were analysed, alongside fieldwork from 2 weeks spent at the United Nations' climate conference in Glasgow in 2021. The fieldwork data consists of participant observation combined with semi-structured interviews.
Results: The movement's demand to “tell the truth” utilises a narrative established on a fact-based enlightenment. This is complemented by notions of a fixed temporal deadline and predicted societal collapse. We highlight prominent perspectives that came to light and identify three main positions that the activists held with respect to science.
Discussion: The findings show the positioning of science and scientific knowledge as a supreme authority, which acts to depoliticize the discourse and induces reductionism in imagining climate futures. This positioning, combined with the centrality of apocalyptic imagery, hampers the construction of alternative futures and fails to engage meaningfully with climate justice.
Following Greta Thunberg's school strike in Stockholm in August 2018 and the October 2018 'declar... more Following Greta Thunberg's school strike in Stockholm in August 2018 and the October 2018 'declaration of rebellion' by activists in the UK, 2019 saw several climate protest movements rise to public attention, including Fridays for Future (FFF), Extinction Rebellion (XR), and the US Sunrise Movement. What is striking about them is that they rather bluntly refer to science in their campaigns. In this paper, we present an in-depth and comparative study of how the new climate protest movements relate to scientific evidence. Employing a narrative analysis of different types of data (websites, press releases, and media coverage), we study the movements' understandings of 'the science' as well as of science's role in policy processes. We find that the movements in their initial phase predominantly rely on science for their legitimation and adopt a scientific worldview with very little 'green ambivalence'. Notably, FFF and XR hold a deficit model of existing climate communication and enact roles as science communicators.
Redes. Revista De Estudios Sociales De La Ciencia Y La Tecnología, 2022
Este artículo busca contribuir a las discusiones cada vez más frecuentes sobre las transformacion... more Este artículo busca contribuir a las discusiones cada vez más frecuentes sobre las transformaciones intelectuales, personales y emocionales que experimentan con cada nuevo proyecto de investigación y colaboración quienes realizan trabajo de campo etnográfico en el marco de los Estudios Sociales de la Ciencia y la Tecnología (ESCyT). A partir de la experiencia de investigar 'insertas' (embedded) en grandes proyectos colaborativos de las ciencias del cambio global, del clima y ambientales, las autoras proponemos la noción de 'devenir' (becoming) para capturar las transformaciones positivas generales que experimentan las/los etnógrafas/os, transformaciones que van más allá de la comprensión un tanto estática y unidimensional que surge del recurso a la noción de ' roles', de uso frecuente en la literatura especializada. Concluimos con algunas observaciones sobre las transformaciones o 'devenires' que también nuestros colaboradores experimentan.
In recent years, a new wave of climate activist groups, such as Extinction Rebellion, Fridays for... more In recent years, a new wave of climate activist groups, such as Extinction Rebellion, Fridays for Future and the Sunrise Movement have reshaped public debates on climate action. In so doing they refer to scientific evidence. But, how exactly do they understand science’s relationship to society? Drawing on documentary evidence, Simone Rödder argues that the use of evidence by these groups, especially the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), reflects an effective form of science communication, albeit one that leaves hierarchies of scientific knowledge largely intact.
Tsunamis are natural hazards that can have devastating societal impacts. While tsunamis cannot be... more Tsunamis are natural hazards that can have devastating societal impacts. While tsunamis cannot be prevented, their risk to coastal communities can be mitigated through targeted measures such as early warning, evacuation training or tsunami-aware spatial planning. The particularities of tsunamis–being rare events with high impact and a short yet operable time span for warning–structure the associated research approaches and sociotechnical innovations. In this paper, we explore interdisciplinary knowledge integration and stakeholder engagement in tsunami science based on interviews with researchers from various tsunami-related fields. We find that the interviewees’ academic identities are typically grounded in a disciplinary core, out of which they subsequently cross boundaries. For all respondents, however, it is a matter of course that becoming and being a member of the tsunami community includes the need to communicate across boundaries. Our results show that the idea of early warning unites the tsunami field. Notably, however, it is not the material technology but the political goal of effective early warning that holds an integrative function across disciplines. Furthermore, we find modelling to be seen as the “backbone of everything” tsunami-related, which in combination with visualisation techniques such as a global map of tsunami risks also serves to integrate stakeholders beyond the tsunami research community. Interviewees mention the interaction between scientists and engineers as the exemplary interdisciplinary collaboration in tsunami science. There were fewer examples of collaborations with social scientists, rendering this a demand rather than a lived reality in current tsunami science. Despite the widely shared view that stakeholder engagement is an important element of tsunami science, respondents emphasise the associated challenges and indicate that this practice is not yet sufficiently institutionalised.
The working paper examines the UN climate conference (COP26) organised in Glasgow in November 202... more The working paper examines the UN climate conference (COP26) organised in Glasgow in November 2021 as a transnational mega-event, which constituted not only an important moment in international climate talks, but also a temporary convergence point for a multitude of actors and an arena for conflicts and contestation over framing within a broader global policy space. This perspective allows us to offer a view of the current state of global climate politics more comprehensive than those of analyses focused mainly on the negotiations. Using collaborative event ethnography, over two weeks eight researchers identified the material, spatial and social dimensions of the conference. We identify three circles of climate governance, which framed practices, interactions and debates in Glasgow. These comprise an inner circle of state-led negotiations (‘The In’), an official side programme (‘The Off’) and a relatively heterogeneous wider environment of self-organised events (‘The Fringe’). Each circle is populated by a different set of actors and enacts a distinct representation of ‘the global’. Our analysis of dynamics within each of these circles shows that climate governance has entered a new and contradictory phase, where some boundaries are blurred while others are reaffirmed, and where old conflicts resurface while new dividing lines appear. The Paris architecture for reporting and review has been finalised, but thus far the new approach has failed to close gaps between pledges and objectives for mitigation and climate finance. Global political and corporate elites have seemingly come to acknowledge the climate emergency and the need for a global low-carbon transformation, but the solutions proposed in Glasgow remained partial and fragile, and tightly contained within the dominant horizon of capitalist market- and techno-fixes. The communication strategy of the UNFCCC and the UK Presidency used increasingly radical terms to convey urgency and momentum, which in turn risked emptying activist notions of their content and force. A growing part of the climate movement reacted with critiques of corporate takeover and calls for “real zero” instead of “net zero”. In the conclusion, we examine a series of contentious issues and provide avenues for reflection on the future of climate governance.
Allg. Forschungsberichte, Universität Hamburg, 2022
Tsunamis are natural hazards that can have devastating societal impacts. While tsunamis cannot be... more Tsunamis are natural hazards that can have devastating societal impacts. While tsunamis cannot be prevented, their risk to coastal communities can be mitigated through targeted measures such as early warning, evacuation training or tsunami-aware spatial planning. The particularities of tsunamis – being rare events with high impact and a short yet operable time span for warning – structure the associated research approaches and sociotechnical innovations. In this paper, we explore interdisciplinary knowledge integration and stakeholder engagement in tsunami science based on interviews with researchers from the EU COST action “Accelerating Global science In Tsunami HAzard and Risk analysis”(AGITHAR). We find that the interviewees’ academic identities are typically grounded in a disciplinary core, out of which they subsequently cross boundaries. For all respondents, however, it is a matter of course that becoming and being a member of the tsunami community includes the need to communicate across boundaries. Our results show that the idea of early warning unites the tsunami field. Notably, however, it is not the material technology but the political goal of effective early warning that holds an integrative function across disciplines. Furthermore, we find modelling to be seen as the “backbone of everything” tsunami related, which in combination with visualisation techniques such as a global map of tsunami risks also serves to integrate stakeholders beyond the tsunami research community. Interviewees mention the interaction between scientists and engineers as the exemplary interdisciplinary collaboration in tsunami science. There were fewer examples of collaborations with social scientists, rendering this a demand rather than a lived reality in current tsunami science. Despite the widely shared view that stakeholder engagement is an important element of tsunami science, respondents emphasise the associated challenges and indicate that this practice is not yet sufficiently institutionalised.
Academic air travel (AAT) is increasingly critiqued for its carbon emissions. Based on an initial... more Academic air travel (AAT) is increasingly critiqued for its carbon emissions. Based on an initial interest in the relevance, persistence and change of climate-impacting practices like AAT as part of global academic interaction and collaboration, this paper presents a literature review to take stock of existing research on AAT. A two-step literature search was conducted, resulting in a range of relevant publications (N=220). The following areas of interest were identified: first, the relevance that academic travel has in the development of the research university and the international connectivity of modern science. Second, functions of meetingness and physical copresence in the context of academic communication, scientific exchange and networking appear as the main drivers of AAT, yet characteristics of the academic career system and labour market as well as tourism aspects play a role, too. Third, discourses around AAT focus on the perceived obligation to fly (“fly or die”), its politicisation with regard to the inequality of access, and justifications for upholding current (pre Covid-19) rates of AAT. Fourth, AAT is increasingly critically discussed in the context of climate change (climatisation). Fifth, alternatives to AAT are discussed, ranging from the use of virtual meetings and the re-organisation of academic conferences to more fundamental changes in the mode of research practices. The review was started before the Covid-19 pandemic brought AAT to an abrupt halt, a situation that now makes researching this social practice particularly timely. We thus conclude that AAT is an emerging and promising area for future research.
Im Diskurs um Nachhaltigkeit fehlt bislang eine spezifisch soziologische Perspektive. Gerade ang... more Im Diskurs um Nachhaltigkeit fehlt bislang eine spezifisch soziologische Perspektive. Gerade angesichts der Vielfalt des Diskurses kann eine "Soziologie der Nachhaltigkeit" jedoch unterschied-liche Perspektiven aufeinander beziehen und kritisch auf implizite Prämissen reflektieren. Eine spezifische Herausforderung liegt für die Soziologie darin, sich zu der Problemorientierung sowie zum normativen Charakter der Nachhaltigkeit zu positionieren. Dieser Beitrag macht den Vorschlag, die Perspektivenviel-falt der Soziologie als Stärke zu betrachten, die es angesichts der parallelen Vielfalt der Nachhaltigkeit produktiv zu machen gilt. Als soziologische Zugänge zur Nachhaltigkeitsdebatte gelten dabei solche Ansätze, die sich zur Gleichzeitigkeit von Beobachtungs-und Transformationsorientierung verhalten und-ob mit bereichsspezifischem oder gesellschaftstheoretischem Fokus-zu durchaus pluralen Vermittlungsvor-schlägen kommen. Explorativ mit Blick auf das Feld einer Soziologie der Nachhaltigkeit werden fünf derartige Vorschläge exemplarisch vorgestellt: doing sustainability, eine feldtheoretische Analyse, ein wissenschaftssoziologischer Beitrag, epistemische Go-vernance und eine gesellschaftstheoretische Reflexion. Wir verstehen dies als Auftakt für eine Diskussion der "Soziologie der Nachhaltigkeit".
Local discourses around the world draw on multiple resources to make sense of a "travelling idea”... more Local discourses around the world draw on multiple resources to make sense of a "travelling idea” such as climate change, including direct experiences of extreme weather, mediated reports, educational NGO activities, and pre-existing values and belief systems. There is no simple link between scientific literacy, climate change awareness, and a sustainable lifestyle, but complex entanglements of transnational and local discourses and of scientific and other (religious, moral etc.) ways of making sense of climate change. As the case studies show, this entanglement of ways of sense-making results in both localizations of transnational discourses and the climatization of local discourses: aspects of the travelling idea of climate change are well-received, integrated, transformed, or rejected. Our comparison reveals a major factor that shapes the local appropriation of the concept of anthropogenic climate change: the fit of prior local interpretations, norms and practices with travelling ideas influences whether they are likely to be embraced or rejected.
Das politische Leitbild Nachhaltiger Entwicklung mit seiner integralen Verknüpfung von globalen ö... more Das politische Leitbild Nachhaltiger Entwicklung mit seiner integralen Verknüpfung von globalen ökologischen und sozialen Problemlagen und der darin liegenden Vision ihrer Lösung, stiftete für eine Soziologie der Nachhaltigkeit nicht nur den Anlass, sondern zugleich eine dezidierte normative Orientierung. Inzwischen beobachten wir allerdings eine Veralltäglichung und Pluralisierung von Nachhaltigkeit, sodass nicht mehr umstandslos die Gültigkeit einer geteilten normativen Prämisse voraussetzt werden kann. Die von K.-W. Brand ins Gespräch gebrachte Kennzeichnung einer „zweiten Welle“ soziologischer Nachhaltigkeitsforschung greifen wir auf, ohne aber die Normativität des Brundtland’schen Nachhaltigkeitsbegriffs als Prämisse zu setzen, sondern um für die schon in der „ersten Welle“ aufscheinende Reflexivität als Integrationspunkt zu argumentieren. Zur Untersuchung von Nachhaltigkeitsphänomenen stellen wir eine entsprechende Heuristik vor. Gewendet als Forschungsprogramm kann dies den Kern einer von Brand in den Raum gestellten „zweiten Welle“ der Soziologie der Nachhaltigkeit darstellen.
Leviathan : Berliner Zeitschrift für Sozialwissenschaft, 2021
Wir sprechen uns in unserer Replik dafür aus, die Pluralität soziologischer Perspektiven auch und... more Wir sprechen uns in unserer Replik dafür aus, die Pluralität soziologischer Perspektiven auch und gerade für den Gegenstandsbereich Nachhaltigkeit als Vorteil zu sehen und den Diskurs entsprechend zu gestalten.
Environmental mega conferences have become the format of choice in environmental governance. Conf... more Environmental mega conferences have become the format of choice in environmental governance. Conferences of the Parties (COPs) under the climate change and biodiversity conventions in particular attract global media attention and an ever-growing number of increasingly diverse actors, including scholars of global environmental politics. They are arenas for interstate negotiation, but also temporary interfaces that constitute and represent world society, and they focalise global struggles over just and sustainable futures. Collaborative event ethnography (CEE) as a research methodology emerged as a response to these developments. This volume retraces its genealogy, explains its conceptual and methodological foundations and presents insights into its practice. It is meant as an introduction for students, an overview for curious newcomers to the field, and an invitation for experienced researchers wishing to experiment with a new method.
Während Klimaforschung lange als rein naturwissenschaftliches Unterfangen galt, wird sie zunehmen... more Während Klimaforschung lange als rein naturwissenschaftliches Unterfangen galt, wird sie zunehmend auch in den Sozialwissenschaften betrieben. Die Popularisierung in und außerhalb der Wissenschaft hat dabei nicht nur zu neuen Problembezügen geführt, sondern auch eine wachsende Unübersichtlichkeit produziert: Es ist ein Bedarf entstanden, disziplinäre Einstiegspunkte, interdisziplinäre Anschlussmöglichkeiten und transdisziplinäre Austauschgelegenheiten zu sondieren. Die Beiträge des Bandes thematisieren zentrale Schlüsselwerke der sozialwissenschaftlichen Klimaforschung und ermöglichen so einen ersten und orientierenden Zugang zu diesem Forschungsfeld.
Global news on anthropogenic climate change is shaped by international politics, scientific repor... more Global news on anthropogenic climate change is shaped by international politics, scientific reports and voices from transnational protest movements. This timely volume asks how local communities engage with these transnational discourses. The chapters in this volume present a range of compelling case studies drawn from a broad cross-section of local communities around the world, reflecting diverse cultural and geographical contexts. From Greenland to northern Tanzania, it illuminates how different understandings evolve in diverse cultural and geographical contexts while also revealing some common patterns of how people make sense of climate change. Global Warming in Local Discourses constitutes a significant, new contribution to understanding the multi-perspectivity of our debates on climate change, further highlighting the need for interdisciplinary study within this area. It will be a valuable resource to those studying climate and science communication; those interested in understanding the various roles played by journalism, NGOs, politics and science in shaping public understandings of climate change, as well as those exploring the intersections of the global and the local in debates on the sustainable transformation of societies.
Alice Goffman beschreibt, wie schwarze eher als weiße Jugendliche ins Visier der amerikanischen P... more Alice Goffman beschreibt, wie schwarze eher als weiße Jugendliche ins Visier der amerikanischen Polizei geraten
Vortrag im Rahmen des Symposium "Nachhaltigkeit im gesellschaftlichen Umbruch" and der Universitä... more Vortrag im Rahmen des Symposium "Nachhaltigkeit im gesellschaftlichen Umbruch" and der Universität Hamburg
Climate change is commonly regarded as one of 21st century's grand challenges that needs to be ad... more Climate change is commonly regarded as one of 21st century's grand challenges that needs to be addressed by conducting integrated research combining natural and social sciences. To meet this need, how to best train future climate researchers should be reconsidered. Here, we present our experience from a team-taught semester-long course with students of the international master program " Integrated Climate System Sciences " (ICSS) at the University of Hamburg, Germany. Ten lecturers with different backgrounds in physical, mathematical, biogeo-chemical and social sciences accompanied by a researcher trained in didactics prepared and regularly participated in a course which consisted of weekly classes. The foundation of the course was the use of the concept of 'scales' – climate varying on different temporal and spatial scales – by developing a joint definition of 'scales in the climate system' that is applicable in the natural sciences and in the social sciences. By applying this interdisciplinary definition of 'scales' to phenomena from all components of the climate system and the socioeconomic dimensions, we aimed for an integrated description of the climate system. Following the concept of research-driven teaching and learning and using a variety of teaching techniques, the students designed their own scale diagram to illustrate climate-related phenomena in different disciplines. The highlight of the course was the presentation of individually developed scale diagrams by every student with all lecturers present. Based on the already conducted course, we currently redesign the course concept to be teachable by a similarly large group of lecturers but with alternating presence in class. With further refinement and also a currently ongoing documentation of the teaching material, we will continue to use the concept of 'scales' as a vehicle for teaching an integrated view of the climate system.
An Interdisciplinary Workshop, Hamburg 6-7 Sept. 2017
The climate of the past is a fundamental p... more An Interdisciplinary Workshop, Hamburg 6-7 Sept. 2017
The climate of the past is a fundamental part of today's climate research. Paleoclimatological data from the archives of nature serve to calibrate climate models and inform current knowledge about future climate changes. Historian of science Matthias Dörries argues that paleoclimatology gained political relevance by writing a " history of the deep past " by which it also influences the interpretation of the present; it helped to fill the Earth's history with concrete climate events (Dörries 2015: 25). But how did the study of this " deep past " become such a crucial pillar of modern climate science? How has it impacted the very notion of 'climate', and what were the consequences for both, paleoclimatological and climate science practices? It is the goal of this workshop to tackle these and related questions in an interdisciplinary setting. In the 1960s and 70s, results from the study of ice cores, sea sediments and tree rings provided evidence that climate is prone to change not only over thousands of years but also during period of times that are within the reach of human imagination, like years or decades. At the same time, these studies extended the temporal scale of climate change beyond any human imagination, to millions of years, and helped to expand the spatial scale from regional data gathering to a global concept of climate. As Dörries points out: " the Earth's past in the 1980s had become quite different from its past in the early 1960s " (27). The study of the climate's past shifted from being a marginalised subject of historical climatology to being a pool of data indispensable for climate modelling. Consequently, and with this increasing relevance, new research questions, approaches and technologies were developed and led to an enormous growth of the field. Paleoclimatological disciplines such as ice core research, tree rings and pollen analysis, ocean and lake sediment studies have emerged from a range of scientific fields such as physics, glaciology, oceanography, botany, ecology, chemistry or archaeology with differing research questions, cultures and methods of data interpretation. The integrative presentation of paleoclimatological data as a fundament of global climate change knowledge, as for example in IPCC reports, tends to hide conflicts between the different paleoclimatological fields as well as between paleoclimatology and climate modelling regarding type and complexity of data or scales of their validity, as well as the frictions in the process of making paleoclimatological data fit for computer models. This workshop aims at exploring the changing roles of paleoclimatology as a part of climate science and its contribution to the understanding of climate on different temporal and spatial scales throughout the 20 th century.
CALL FOR REGISTRATION (deadline 31 Aug. 2017)
We are pleased to announce the programme of the in... more CALL FOR REGISTRATION (deadline 31 Aug. 2017)
We are pleased to announce the programme of the interdisciplinary workshop “Towards a History of Paleoclimatology: Changing roles and shifting scales in climate sciences” (Hamburg, 6-7 Sept. 2017). The workshop is organised within the frame of the German Centre of Excellence “Integrated Climate System Analysis and Prediction (CliSAP)” and in cooperation with the Centre of Environmental Humanities, Aarhus University.
We invite scholars with an interest in the history of paleoclimatology (from the humanities, social sciences as well as from climate sciences) to participate in the workshop. Registration is needed until 31 Aug. by email to lara.jung@studium.uni-hamburg.de
The climate of the past is a fundamental part of today’s climate research. Paleoclimatological data from the archives of nature serve to calibrate climate models and inform current knowledge about future climate changes. But how did the study of the “deep past” become such a crucial pillar of modern climate science? How did it contribute to the understanding of climate on different temporal and spatial scales throughout the 20th century? And how has it impacted the very notion of ‘climate’, and what were the consequences for both, paleoclimatological and climate science practices? It is the goal of the workshop to tackle these and related questions in an interdisciplinary setting: The invited speakers are historians, sociologists and archaeologists, as well as (paleo)climatologists.
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Articles by Simone Rödder
Methods: Using mixed qualitative methods, the group's online press releases for the year 2019 were analysed, alongside fieldwork from 2 weeks spent at the United Nations' climate conference in Glasgow in 2021. The fieldwork data consists of participant observation combined with semi-structured interviews.
Results: The movement's demand to “tell the truth” utilises a narrative established on a fact-based enlightenment. This is complemented by notions of a fixed temporal deadline and predicted societal collapse. We highlight prominent perspectives that came to light and identify three main positions that the activists held with respect to science.
Discussion: The findings show the positioning of science and scientific knowledge as a supreme authority, which acts to depoliticize the discourse and induces reductionism in imagining climate futures. This positioning, combined with the centrality of apocalyptic imagery, hampers the construction of alternative futures and fails to engage meaningfully with climate justice.
(N=220). The following areas of interest were identified: first, the relevance that academic travel has in the development of the research university and the international connectivity of modern science.
Second, functions of meetingness and physical copresence in the context of academic communication, scientific exchange and networking appear as the main drivers of AAT, yet characteristics of the
academic career system and labour market as well as tourism aspects play a role, too. Third, discourses around AAT focus on the perceived obligation to fly (“fly or die”), its politicisation with regard to the inequality of access, and justifications for upholding current (pre Covid-19) rates of AAT. Fourth, AAT is increasingly critically discussed in the context of climate change (climatisation). Fifth, alternatives to AAT are discussed, ranging from the use of virtual meetings and the re-organisation of academic conferences to more fundamental changes in the mode of research practices. The review was started before the Covid-19 pandemic brought AAT to an abrupt halt, a situation that now makes researching this social practice particularly timely. We thus conclude that AAT is an emerging and promising area for future research.
Methods: Using mixed qualitative methods, the group's online press releases for the year 2019 were analysed, alongside fieldwork from 2 weeks spent at the United Nations' climate conference in Glasgow in 2021. The fieldwork data consists of participant observation combined with semi-structured interviews.
Results: The movement's demand to “tell the truth” utilises a narrative established on a fact-based enlightenment. This is complemented by notions of a fixed temporal deadline and predicted societal collapse. We highlight prominent perspectives that came to light and identify three main positions that the activists held with respect to science.
Discussion: The findings show the positioning of science and scientific knowledge as a supreme authority, which acts to depoliticize the discourse and induces reductionism in imagining climate futures. This positioning, combined with the centrality of apocalyptic imagery, hampers the construction of alternative futures and fails to engage meaningfully with climate justice.
(N=220). The following areas of interest were identified: first, the relevance that academic travel has in the development of the research university and the international connectivity of modern science.
Second, functions of meetingness and physical copresence in the context of academic communication, scientific exchange and networking appear as the main drivers of AAT, yet characteristics of the
academic career system and labour market as well as tourism aspects play a role, too. Third, discourses around AAT focus on the perceived obligation to fly (“fly or die”), its politicisation with regard to the inequality of access, and justifications for upholding current (pre Covid-19) rates of AAT. Fourth, AAT is increasingly critically discussed in the context of climate change (climatisation). Fifth, alternatives to AAT are discussed, ranging from the use of virtual meetings and the re-organisation of academic conferences to more fundamental changes in the mode of research practices. The review was started before the Covid-19 pandemic brought AAT to an abrupt halt, a situation that now makes researching this social practice particularly timely. We thus conclude that AAT is an emerging and promising area for future research.
The climate of the past is a fundamental part of today's climate research. Paleoclimatological data from the archives of nature serve to calibrate climate models and inform current knowledge about future climate changes. Historian of science Matthias Dörries argues that paleoclimatology gained political relevance by writing a " history of the deep past " by which it also influences the interpretation of the present; it helped to fill the Earth's history with concrete climate events (Dörries 2015: 25). But how did the study of this " deep past " become such a crucial pillar of modern climate science? How has it impacted the very notion of 'climate', and what were the consequences for both, paleoclimatological and climate science practices? It is the goal of this workshop to tackle these and related questions in an interdisciplinary setting. In the 1960s and 70s, results from the study of ice cores, sea sediments and tree rings provided evidence that climate is prone to change not only over thousands of years but also during period of times that are within the reach of human imagination, like years or decades. At the same time, these studies extended the temporal scale of climate change beyond any human imagination, to millions of years, and helped to expand the spatial scale from regional data gathering to a global concept of climate. As Dörries points out: " the Earth's past in the 1980s had become quite different from its past in the early 1960s " (27). The study of the climate's past shifted from being a marginalised subject of historical climatology to being a pool of data indispensable for climate modelling. Consequently, and with this increasing relevance, new research questions, approaches and technologies were developed and led to an enormous growth of the field. Paleoclimatological disciplines such as ice core research, tree rings and pollen analysis, ocean and lake sediment studies have emerged from a range of scientific fields such as physics, glaciology, oceanography, botany, ecology, chemistry or archaeology with differing research questions, cultures and methods of data interpretation. The integrative presentation of paleoclimatological data as a fundament of global climate change knowledge, as for example in IPCC reports, tends to hide conflicts between the different paleoclimatological fields as well as between paleoclimatology and climate modelling regarding type and complexity of data or scales of their validity, as well as the frictions in the process of making paleoclimatological data fit for computer models. This workshop aims at exploring the changing roles of paleoclimatology as a part of climate science and its contribution to the understanding of climate on different temporal and spatial scales throughout the 20 th century.
We are pleased to announce the programme of the interdisciplinary workshop “Towards a History of Paleoclimatology: Changing roles and shifting scales in climate sciences” (Hamburg, 6-7 Sept. 2017). The workshop is organised within the frame of the German Centre of Excellence “Integrated Climate System Analysis and Prediction (CliSAP)” and in cooperation with the Centre of Environmental Humanities, Aarhus University.
We invite scholars with an interest in the history of paleoclimatology (from the humanities, social sciences as well as from climate sciences) to participate in the workshop. Registration is needed until 31 Aug. by email to lara.jung@studium.uni-hamburg.de
The climate of the past is a fundamental part of today’s climate research. Paleoclimatological data from the archives of nature serve to calibrate climate models and inform current knowledge about future climate changes. But how did the study of the “deep past” become such a crucial pillar of modern climate science? How did it contribute to the understanding of climate on different temporal and spatial scales throughout the 20th century? And how has it impacted the very notion of ‘climate’, and what were the consequences for both, paleoclimatological and climate science practices? It is the goal of the workshop to tackle these and related questions in an interdisciplinary setting: The invited speakers are historians, sociologists and archaeologists, as well as (paleo)climatologists.
You can find more information about the content and a detailed programme with abstracts in the PDF as well as here:
https://www.wiso.uni-hamburg.de/fachbereich-sowi/professuren/roedder/ueber-uns/news/workshop-paleo.html