Do We Care to Listen?: Commitments of Care in Environmental Communication from the Fields of India

Abstract

ABSTRACT Reimaging environmental communication as not only a “crisis discipline” but also as a “care discipline” opens up new possibilities for research and praxis. It challenges environmental communication scholars to rethink – and the funding bodies and institutions to reimagine – how an issue and discipline as central to humanity as the environment could progress. This article highlights key findings from women farmers-led environmental campaigns in India to challenge assumptions that might move us to overlook them. The article hopes to help us rethink the concept and practice of care through collaboration and ongoing relational research. Overall, this essay hopes to reimage the genesis and the future of the discipline of environmental communication as embodied in the everyday struggles and victories of women farmers at the forefront of environmental protection and social justice movements in the Global South and transnationally.