Critical, Engaged and Change-oriented Scholarship in Environmental Communication. Six Methodological Dilemmas to Think With

TLDR

Calls for critical, engaged, and change‑oriented scholarship in environmental communication are widespread, yet few papers explain what it practically entails, and this article does not provide solutions. The article seeks to advance discussion on the methodological implications of such scholarship by presenting dilemma descriptions that help researchers consider and apply these issues in practice. Drawing on experience across environmental communication and related fields, the authors outline six inherent methodological dilemmas—grasping communication, representing others, involving people, co‑producing knowledge, engaging critically, and addressing conflict—and provide guiding questions to apply them in research.

Abstract

While calls for critical, engaged and change-oriented scholarship in environmental communication (EC) abound, few articles discuss what this may practically entail. With this article, we aim to contribute to a discussion in EC about the methodological implications of such scholarship. Based on our combined experience in EC research and drawing from a variety of academic fields, we describe six methodological dilemmas that we encounter in our research practice and that we believe are inherent to such scholarship. These dilemmas are (1) grasping communication; (2) representing others; (3) involving people in research; (4) co-producing knowledge; (5) engaging critically; and (6) relating to conflict. This article does not offer solutions to these complex dilemmas. Rather, our dilemma descriptions are meant to help researchers think through methodological issues in critical, engaged and change-oriented EC research. The article also helps to translate the dilemmas to the reality of research projects through a set of questions, aimed to support a sensitivity to, and understanding of, the dilemmas in context.