Costelloe-KuehnMemo40

abstract0:

Collectively and effectively negotiating contemporary environmental problems requires strong understandings of the practices and politics of information circulation. This multi-sited ethnography draws on two years of fieldwork in India and the United States to investigate “experimental environmental media” (EEM), which I define preliminarily as the innovative use of media to enhance capacity to deal with environmental problems by organizing “enunciatory communities” (Kim Fortun). EEM draws together multiplicities of perspectives and expertise: film-makers, GIS mappers, scientists, web designers, government officials and people with diverse local knowledges. Specifically, this study asks how collaboration (on EEM) is forged and sustained through “experiments in translation.” Developing better translational practices and forums are necessary elements for successfully producing and circulating the interdisciplinary knowledges needed for addressing critical environmental threats. This study contributes fine-grained anthropological analyses of the ways in which "new media" are both enabling and constraining today’s mediated environmentalism, as well interacting with subjectivities, collectivities, and practices in different contexts. This study will draw on and contribute to the literature in science and technology studies (STS) on the production and authorization of knowledge (within social movements in particular) (Steve Epstein), integrating insights from media studies including the politics of Informationalism (Manuel Castells), and the anthropology of new media (Faye Ginsburg, Chris Kelty), environmental politics and poetics (Kim Fortun), and "emergent forms of life" (Michael Fischer).

abstract:

This study will document and analyze emerging and experimental strategies combining old and new media to build capacity for addressing environmental issues. By conducting in-depth interviews and participant-observation, I will advance understanding of how trans(inter?)disciplinary collaborations are being forged and sustained between a variety of experts: film-makers, GIS mappers, web designers, people with various local knowledges, etc. The aim of "experimental environmental media" (EEM) is to develop a) lines of communication and collaboration between varied experts; b) collective knowledge production and circulation; c) innovative "protest" tactics that go beyond negative critiques. EEM collectives draw together a multiplicity of perspectives to understand their complex and power-laden "environment" and then disseminate this knowledge, often with a juxtapositional, rather than linear, logic. AGEE QUOTE from ALI on TAKING THINGS SERIOUSLY. New technologies, specifically those of "new media," are enabling and constraining the efforts of environmental justice advocates in myriad ways and my study will pay close attention to how the "technological grid" is shaping subjectivities, collectivites, and practices, giving rise to new possibilities and new challenges. Relatively inexpensive media and IT equipment has catalyzed a rapid growth in "independent" media production, but these technologies are also often produced through highly toxic procedures and are part of intensified exercises of surveilance and power. This study aims to document and analyze the double-binds faced by EEM collectives in the United States and India, drawing out the local and specific double-binds that illuminate the contemporary global system and possible future trajectories.

should my abstract also include more specific "intellectual merits" and "broader impacts?"

if so,

Intellectual Merit This study will contribute to the historical record of ways new media technologies have been adopted and innovated, within environmental social movements in particular, highlighting the emergence and sustenance of transdisciplinary collaborations with a multiplicity of expert This study will advance understanding of how social movements develop, focusing particularly on the mutual shaping of knowledge**,** ideology and (media) technological practice. This study will contribute to the ethnographic record of media and art producers in different national contexts, documenting and analyzing how media producers carry out and conceive their collective work, its contexts and consequences, articulating new ideas about how both media and democracy should work.

Broader Impacts

My dissertation will illuminate particularly promising points of intervention, offer practical recommendations for local practice and broader policies, and contribute to the refashioning of STS scholars as “public intellectuals” that can “speak out” on critical issues (Stevens 2008). Documentation and analysis of new media use in relation to environmental issues in India and the United States is important today because: “Old” media are in crisis. Increasing consolidation – especially since the Federal Communications Commission’s 2003 decision to drastically relax media cross-ownership rules – has produced a corporate media ecology that is more beholding to advertisers and powerful interests and less accountable to the wider public.
 * Information production and circulation is crucial for dealing with complex and critical environmental issues
 * Globalization produces both new threats and new possibilities for addressing these threats
 * There is an urgent need for innovation in new media practices and communities
 * “Development” and “modernization” are putting unprecedented ecological strain on relatively powerless communities in India.

The study will result in journal articles, a dissertation, a book, and presentations at STS, anthropology and communications conferences. The study will also result in presentations at conferences on environmental justice and democratic media. I will participate in workshops, helping participants understand the cultural and infrastructural aspects of effective, collaborative environmental media. Broad impact will also result from the development of case studies for use in undergraduate courses focused on the social, ethical and legal dimensions of science and technology.