Analysing Environmental Discourse: A Critical Approach(Bloomsbury Advances in Critical Discourse Studies)

The sheer scale of global ecosystem devastation and the crescendo of the climate crisis may serve as good reasons for scholars and commentators to welcome any social mobilization that tries to save the earth. And yet not all environmentalisms are good environmentalisms. From eco-fascism to greenwashing and neoliberal conservation, not all 'green' action has a positive value. Offering a critical framework for discourse analysts to get to the heart of this specific complexity, this book is a study of the key discursive moves in environmentalist discourses that perpetuate social inequality, putting forward an alternate socioecological approach to avoiding these pitfalls. While debates over the social visions and implications of environmentalist discourse have been raging for decades, they have yet to receive focused attention within critical discourse studies. This book addresses this gap, building on critiques from feminist, queer, anti-racist, Indigenous, and decolonial scholars across fields such as political ecology, environmental sociology, indigenous studies, human geography, literary theory, environmental communication, and others, in which the tropes, strategies, and structures perpetuated within strands of environmentalism are identified. In doing so, it brings forward new case studies, focused discourse analysis, and a socioecological normative framework to map out discursive formations. Special attention is paid to the whiteness and/or coloniality of ecological futures articulated as utopian social visions, and it is argued that only when combined with a radical vision for social justice are these environmental utopias desirable, attainable, or workable.

Table of Contents:
List of Figures List of Tables Introduction: Intersectionality and Ecological Crisis 1. Critique and Discourses of the Earth 2. Ecointersectional Discourse Analysis 3. Green Capitalism and the Conscientious Consumer 4. 'Barbarian Hordes': Overpopulation and the Climate Migrant 5. Colonial Conservation: Green Violence at the Wild Frontier 6. Race, Nature, Nation: Econationalism Conclusion: Critique, Despair, and Critical Hope References Index

About the Author :
Scott Burnett is Assistant Professor of African Studies and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the Pennsylvania State University, USA and a research affiliate at the Wits Centre for Diversity Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.

Review :
Scott Burnett's highly readable and powerful new book paves the way for further integrating critical discourse studies and political ecology. The robust conversations he envisages between these fields are not only vital to understanding our harrowing planetary socio-ecological condition but in fact necessary to kindle what he calls 'critical hope'.