Eco-Impacts and the Greening of Postmodernity: New Maps for Communication Studies, Cultural Studies, and Sociology

327 Pages·1996·16.089 MB·English

by  Tom Jagtenberg, David C. McKie

ECO-IMPACTSANDTHE

GRHNING Of

POSTMODERNITy

fCO-IMPACtf AND THE
GREENING OF
POSIMODERNIiy
New Maps for Communication Studies,
Cultural Studies, and Sociology
Tom Jaqtenberg
DaviaMcKie
SAGE Publications
International Educational and Professional Publisher
Thousand Oaks London New Delhi
Copyright © 1997 by Sage Publications, Inc.
Sections of some of the following chapters originally appeared in earlier versions
in the Australian Journal of Communication.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form
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from the publisher.
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Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-ln-Publication Data
Jagtenberg, Tom, 1950­
Eco-impacts and the greening of postmodernity : new maps for
communication studies, cultural studies, and sociology / Tom
Jagtenberg and David McKie.
p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-8039-7406-X (acid-free paper). — ISBN 0-8039-7407-8 (pbk.

: acid-free paper)
1. Sociology—Philosophy. 2. Environmentalism—Social aspects.
3. Postmodernism. 4. Culture—Study and teaching. I. McKie,

David, 1947- . II. Title.

HM24.J33 1996

30Ã.01—dc20 96-35625
This book is printed on recycled and acid-free paper. [(JJ^ISOY'INK
97 98 99 00 01 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Acquiring Editor: J. Alex Schwartz
Editorial Assistant Jessica Crawford
Production Editor: Astrid Virding
Production Assistant: Sherrise Purdum
Copy Editor: Marilyn Scott
Typesetter/Designer: Danielle Dillahunt
Indexer: Will Ragsdale
Couer Designer: Lesa Valdez
Contents
Introduction xi
Acknowledgments xxi
1. The Death of Nature? 1
Ideas of Nature: A Historical Review 5
Off-Ground 8
Ways of Dying, Ways of Avoiding 9
Toward Ecocentrism 12
Routes of Resistance 15
Other Discourses, Other Deaths 16
Semiotic Death and Emotions in a Risk Society 18
Decades of Discontent,

Constellations of Knowledge 24
2. Ecological Exclusions:

Mapping Disciplinary Change 28
Institutional Constraint 29
Postmodern Chaos? 32
Taking Bearings 36
Everybody's Mapping 37
The Evolution of Mapping 39
Cognitive Mapping 41
Cultural Mapping 44
The Mapping Of Four Dimensional Social Space 46
Three Dimensional Social Spaces 48
Another Metanarrative? 50
The Exclusion of Nature 51
Mapping Special Journal Issues 56
Summary 59
3. Readdressing Postmodernity

and the Eco-Post 62
Late Modernity or the Three Postmodernisms? 63
Sinking to New Depthlessness,

or Who Laughs at Postmodern Jokes? 64
Referencing Realities:

Insiders and Outsiders 65
Is Our World Safe? 68
Beyond Anthropocentrism 69
Shifting Paradigms and Sick Gaia Gags 71
Postmodernism (b): Academic Responses

and Critical Listings 73
Learning From the Popular 75
Hypercommodiflcation and

the Promotional Condition 77
Postmodernism (c): Plotting Temporal

Coordinates and Conjunctures 80
Postmodernity: The Age of Ecology? 84
Perspectives From Postmodern Science 86
4. Changing Paradigms:

The Greening of Social Movements 90
Social Movements: New Mappings 92
The Labor Movement and

the Challenge of New Social Movements 95
Indigenous Freedom 97
The Women's Movement 99
The Green Movement:

From Conservation to Environmentalism 101
The Counterculture 106
Environmentalism's Disillusion

With the Left 112
Greening of the Left 116
The Green Agenda 117
Summary and Considerations 119
5. Living in the Biosphere:

Eco-Selves and Decentered Identities 121
The Way of the Self 124
Theorizing Self 127
Other Returns ... 129
On With Interactionism 130
Reappraising Mead and

the Interactionist Tradition 134
Greening Interactionism 136
Self and Society:

From Identity Logic to Identity Politics 140
Enter the Cyborgs 143
The Ghost of Self 145
Insights From Deep Ecology 146
Summary: Take It Personally,

the Natural Is Political 148
6. Greening Media Studies:

Natural Histories and CS

(Communication Studies) Theory Zones 150
Loading a More Eco-Friendly Canon 151
Media Eco-Criticism and Cultural Resources 153
Telling Other Stories: Unnatural Histories,

Natural Histories, and Biopolitics 155
Cosmological Science Stories and Other

Introduced Species 158
Holes in the CS Theory Zone: Ecology,

Gaia, and Other Wisdom Traditions 161
A Tale of Two PATs and an Absent Equation 164
Three Faces of Gaia: The Sciences, the Projects,

and the Goddess 166
Don't Shoot the Messages: Ancient Wisdoms

and Modern Popularizations 168
Eastern, and Other, Exposures 171
7. Aligning Media:

Debatable Divides and Boundary Crossings 175
Boundaries (1): Not Reinventing Wheels 175
Boundaries (2): Cross-Generational

and Status Barriers 177
Boundaries (3): Beyond the Species Barrier 179
Boundaries (4): Toward Local

and Global Alliances 181
Boundaries (5): The Political Economy
of Public-Private Divides 184
Boundaries (6): The Eco-Limits of Citizenship,
Nation, and Gender 187
Boundaries (7): Encompassing Consumerism
and the Cost of Comfort 190
Boundaries (8): Mind-Body, Intellect-Emotion,
and Entertainment-Education 192
Boundaries (9): Greening Citizenship,
Consumers, and Eco-Audiences 198
Eco-Audience Work and Emotional Reactions 201
Boundaries (10): CS Disciplines, Food,
and the Physical 203
8. Contours of Knowledge:
Science and the Death of Economics 207
Spheres of Influence: Reintroducing Earth 208
Cultural Studies Fights Back 211
Beyond Modern Rationality: Be Afraid,
Habermasians, Be Very Afraid 214
Combining Cultural Diversity and Eco-Diversity 217
A Brief History (Out of Time): Cosmological
Speculations and Complexity 219
Shifting Economics: Metaphor Tectonics
and Paradigm Templates 222
Post-Economics: The End of Homo Economics
and the New Home Economics? 224
Mastering Nature, Eco-Feminism, and
Plumwood's Five Features 226
Incorporation: Politics and Problems 228
Stereotyping and the Classification
of the Neoclassical 230
Communication Circuits, Paradigm Shifts,
and Qwerty Complications 231
Influencing Butterflies: Chaos, Complexity,
and Nonlinear Economics 234
Summary 236
9. Decentering Cartography:
Scientific Futuremaps
and Ecocultural Projections 239
Dying Subjects and Scientific Revolutions 240
Mapping Other Fields: Colonizing
Other Territories 243
"Untenable Centrisms" and a Tale of Two Halls 246
Cyberbias and the Transgenic Other 248
Beyond Newomancer: Dolphin Dreaming

and Partial Biocentrism 251
Gene Meddling, Future Pathways,

and Disciplinary Leopards 255
Dispositions for Survival 259
References 263
Index 285
About the Authors 303