Communicating climate change and biodiversity loss with local populations: Exploring communicative utopias in eight transdisciplinary case studies

Abstract

Climate change and biodiversity loss trigger policies targeting and impacting local communities worldwide. However, research and policy implementation often fail to sufficiently consider community responses and involve them. We present the results of a collective self-assessment exercise for eight case studies of communications regarding climate change or biodiversity loss between project teams and local communities. We develop eight indicators of good stakeholder communication, reflecting the scope of Verran (2002)'s concept of postcolonial moments as a communicative utopia. We demonstrate that applying our indicators can enhance communication and enable community responses. However, we discover a divergence between timing, complexity, and (introspective) effort. Three cases qualify for postcolonial moments, but scrutinizing power relations and genuine knowledge co-production remain rare. While we verify the potency of various instruments for deconstructing science, their sophistication cannot substitute trust building and epistemic/transdisciplinary awareness. Lastly, we consider that reforming inadequate funding policies helps improving the work in and with local communities.

Complementary ways of seeing “the Nature”: Integrating varieties of knowledge practices in the management of local environmental conflicts in Colombia

“…In recent years, satellite images have become the most precise representation of nature produced by modern science but their lack of accuracy has been effectively concealed. With regard to EP, “seeing from above” often implies standardized or technical solutions to political problems, or in the words of Ansari et al (2023, p. 3): “Quantifiable transformations that rely on de-contextualized approaches suggest that analysis and solutions are objective; yet, such methods typically neglect social, political, cultural or local economic aspects.” They refer to the concept of “slow violence” to expose negative externalities related to the misuse of ecosystems (Nixon, 2011) that come along with technoscientific solutions and the loss of local agency (see also O’Lear, 2015).…”

“…It is well recognized in the literature that the integration of communities is a pre-condition to avoid negative externalities of both natural conservation projects and peacebuilding initiatives (e.g., Hachmann et al, (2023). However, more often than not, political measures and interventions are based only on one-sided data and perspectives, often mirroring academic disciplinary divides and eclipsing local narratives, as Ansari et al (2023) have shown in a meta-analysis on communication with local communities across the globe. Even if the calls for transdisciplinary research projects and the transfer of decolonial approaches to environmental sciences are now widespread (Ansari et al, 2023; Verran, 2002), more often than not the answers by academicians and practitioners alike are merely “communicative” and do not question the basic conceptual underpinnings between “North” and “South” (critical: Ducarme et al, 2021; Whyte 2020).…”

“…However, more often than not, political measures and interventions are based only on one-sided data and perspectives, often mirroring academic disciplinary divides and eclipsing local narratives, as Ansari et al (2023) have shown in a meta-analysis on communication with local communities across the globe. Even if the calls for transdisciplinary research projects and the transfer of decolonial approaches to environmental sciences are now widespread (Ansari et al, 2023; Verran, 2002), more often than not the answers by academicians and practitioners alike are merely “communicative” and do not question the basic conceptual underpinnings between “North” and “South” (critical: Ducarme et al, 2021; Whyte 2020). We go a step further and propose a transdisciplinary heuristic based on an inductive logic aiming to closely link the concepts of natural and social sciences and integrate different ways of “seeing.” The general motivation guiding this paper comes thus from the recognition of the limitations of single descriptions of complex problems such as deforestation, and how it reduces the possibility of implementing EP strategies far from the risk of hiding key actors or eroding local governance structures.…”

“…Different special issues in academic journals like “ Journal of Conflict resolution ” in 2019 (introduction by Cederman & Gleditsch, 2009), “ International Interaction ” in 2023 (e.g., Sosa, 2023), “ MIS Quarterly ” in 2007 (Foreword by Walsham et al, 2007), “ Hydrological Sciences Journal ” in 2016 (introduction by Aggestam & Berndtsson, 2016), and “ Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability ” in 2023 (e.g., Levorato, 2023) have already recognized the importance of combining different research perspectives to understand environmental conflict, but mostly from a managerial perspective, far from the clear recognition of local communities (Adger et al, 2001). A recent study on academic interaction with local communities on climate change and biodiversity loss argued: “Research on transdisciplinary science communication demonstrates that we do not deal with a mere communicative gap but an entire cascade of tangible barriers in approximating ‘the local’” (Ansari et al, 2023, p. 2, see also Howarth et al, 2017; Schönenberg et al, 2017; Washbourne et al, 2021). There is a need for transdisciplinary research and practice to fully understand the interwoven processes of armed conflict, societal transformation, and ecological consequences that allow for bridging ontological and epistemological divides (Ide et al, 2023).…”