Programme Meeting April 2022

Last changed: 03 June 2022
Participants in the Program Meeting 2022.

For the first time in half the projected time of the program, researchers and stakeholders could come together in person.

The directors wants to extend a warm thank you to everyone who attended, whether in person or digitally.

You will find the meeting schedule below, with every talk and session. Are you interested in finding out more about any of the sessions, or contacting a researcher? Presentations are available. Contact erik.hallstensson@slu.se for any and all inquiries.

A schedule does of course not tell the whole story. Some of the talks were recorded and can be found below as well. Perhaps even more important, we had a great time brainstorming, discussing, raising critique and finding new avenues for researcher and stakeholder cooperation. The directors and researchers really look forward to the next programme meeting, where new things will begin and more research results will be shared. We all look forward to seeing new and familiar faces then.

 

Authority and Dialogue in Facilitation Practices

Martin Westin on Authority and Dialogue in Facilitation Practices.

Environmentality in Local Water Management

Amelia Mutter on Environmentality.

Talks and workshops 2022

 

The diversity of our ideas on sustainability and change - Workshop

Lotten Westberg.

In this workshop, we revisit the original idea of what we wish to achieve with the Mistra Environmental Communication programme, as stated in the programme description: “… to reframe environmental communication, i.e., to mainstream an advanced and inclusive understanding of environmental communication in research, policy and practice such that it can effectively underpin and foster sustainability transformations”.

 

"Deliberative authority" - is that a concept that can shed light on facilitation practice?

Martin Westin.

This talk reports on findings from a study of a collaborative governance process within Swedish forest policy. Based on the findings, the concept of deliberative authority is used in an attempt to explain how facilitators structure communication between actors with divergent interests and world views. Recorded below. Available here on YouTube.

 

Introducing a new technology of water governance through the LEVA project

Amelia Mutter.

In 2018, the LEVA project was introduced with the aim of improving local engagement for water management. Through the project, local water coordinators were employed to help facilitate the introduction of more measures to improve water quality and biodiversity. Through the lens of environmentality, this project can be understood as a new technology of environmental governance. Recorded below. Available here on YouTube.

 

Co-design, Paskaia´s superpower in Mosquitia, Honduras

Magnus Bergström.

About communication in the design of a climate compensation project beyond CO2 in Honduras together with the Miskitu indigenous community of Truksinasta. We have worked together with different stakeholders to try to reach a common understanding of a wicked problem.

 

"I don’t know if we should have that discussion now"

Hanna Bergeå.

Participatory dialogues are abundant in natural resource management, as are also the experiences of them. Dialogues have been criticized for not living up to the high ambitions, and for being processes where the mandates are unclear. Our interest has been to investigate how objections about mandate, frames and meaningfulness of the participation are expressed and dealt with in the dialogue interaction.

 

Findings from two years of research into power and conflict in sustainability dialogues

Martin Westin, Fanny Möckel.

What do we know about power and conflict in sustainability dialogues? Two years ago we started to investigate power and conflict in sustainability dialogues. We zoomed in on dialogues initiated by public authorities such as agencies, municipalities and county councils. Over these years we have analysed as well as tried to improve dialogue practice based on our findings. We have worked with urban development in Uppsala, we have explored water governance around Lake Mälaren, we have investigated land use planning in Sápmi and we have done participant observation within Swedish forestry policy.

 

Reception discussion on the documentary film Gállok - Workshop

Vaia Doudaki.

Gállok (2018) is a documentary film directed by Truls Andersen and produced by Deep Sea Productions. It focusses on the prospective operation of a new iron ore mine in Gallok (Kallak), next to the Swedish world heritage site of Laponia, and the conflicts among the mining companies, the local population, and indigenous and environmental activists. The film features the life of Tor Tuorda, a nature photographer committed in a dual struggle: the protection of nature and the ban of the mine’s operation, and the reclaiming of his Sami identity.

 

Complicating Visibility In Global Sustainability Networks

Shiv Ganesh.

This panel discusses findings from research on transparency practices in two types of sustainability networks: sustainable global supply chains, and global environmental reporting networks, highlighting such issues as representation, reporting practices, circularity, viability, sensemaking and knowledge.

 

The messy wild gardens of Biotopia - What happens when you invite wildlife to public parks?

Hanna Bergeå, Maria Brandt.

We are all invited to the natural history museum Biotopia to see how they work with exhibitions and activities around biodiversity. During approximately two hours we will experience and hear about their work, in particular, about their project within the frame of Mistra-EC, which addresses the challenges of communicating about ‘untidy’ and ‘wild’ nature in urban parks.

 

Hur kan vi utveckla ett verktyg för reflektion över ledarskap i dialoger och samverkan?

Martin Westin.

Ledarskap i dialoger och samverkan är en viktig, men svår uppgift. Det är en balansgång mellan att leda och följa en grupp. För att utveckla sådan ledarskapsförmåga krävs reflektion över knepiga situationer som vi har erfarit som dialog- och samverkansledare. Vi har under de senaste åren utvecklat ett verktyg för stödja sådan reflektion: Reflektionscykeln.

 

Co-creation – what is it and what is it good for?

Eva Friman.

Within Mistra Environmental Communication in general, and in work package 3 – science and knowledge co-production – in particular, we aim at co-producing knowledge and co-creating transdisciplinary solutions to the contemporary complex and urgent sustainability challenges we face. In doing so, we aspire to reframe the way we communicate about these challenges, and rethink who should be part of the meaning-making of sustainability transitions.

 

Talking about strategic communication – how environmental communication strategists speak about their work

Lars Hallgren.

In this presentation we will discuss how environmental communication strategists talk about communication and change when they in interviews, lectures and focus group discussions describe their work with communication campaigns and how these representations of communication reproduce and connect to different fields of communication theory. We find that although the in communication theory often criticized transmission- and conduit metaphors dominate in the communication strategy language, also phenomenological, semiotic, critical and social constructionist ideas about communication and change are involved and used in pragmatic strategic communication planning.

 

Room effects on consumer interaction with sustainability campaign and purchase choice

Ann Eklund.

Based in the Goal Framing Theory, we evaluate the impact of the room environment on purchase choice in a simulated online purchase scenario. The study was undertaken in a full-scale lab, where participants visited three different home-like room environments intended to prime hedonic, gain, and normative goal frames. In each room participants viewed parts of a sustainability campaign and made purchase choices in a simulated online shop.

 

Art and environmental communication – Digesting Waves

Sofie Joose and Holly Keasey.

In a series of six working labs, artists, curators and researchers collectively explore tensions and possibilities in art as a societal force for sustainability change. In this speedtalk, Holly Keasey (independent artist) and Sofie Joosse (researcher in EC at SLU) report and reflect on the first event in the MISTRA-EC working lab series: a carefully designed meal, inspired by the formation of waves at sea and within ourselves.

 

Storytelling for the planet – what is it, who does it and why?

Fanny Möckel.

Storytelling for sustainability has become ever more popular. While the term storytelling suggests a uniform approach, storytellers work in very different ways: from scientific to artful storytelling, and from persuasive or manipulative storytelling to collaborative initiatives. Please join us in this session on the storytelling project funded by the strategic reserve of Mistra-EC in which we first shortly present our mapping exercise of storytelling for sustainability and discuss the assumptions underlying these different approaches.

 

 

 

 

 

 


Contact

Portrait Anke Fischer. Photo.Anke Fischer

Programme co-director
Professor in Environmental Communication
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Division of Environmental Communication, Department of Urban and Rural Development
Uppsala, Sweden

Telephone: +46 (0)18 67 35 56
E-mail: anke.fischer@slu.se
Read more on Anke Fischer's CV page

Portrait Eva Friman. Photo. Eva Friman

Programme co-director
Director of
SWEDESD – Sustainability Learning and Research Center, Uppsala University
Telephone: +46 (0)701679174
E-mail: eva.friman@uu.se
Read more about Eva Friman on her CV page