From Limits to Ecocentric Rights and Responsibility: Communication, Globalization, and the Politics of Environmental Transition

Abstract

This article provides a comparative map of the outstanding discursive features and shared underpinnings of the Limits and Transition discourses (TDs) by examining how they have been communicated to reshape the public sphere. Though both are deeply implicated in globalization, the formation of these environmental discourses responds to distinct sets of social agents and interests and to different but complementary ontological and epistemological grounds. In the Global North, the Limits discourse challenged the assumption of unmitigated growth yet has remained anthropocentric. Environmental TDs associated with the Global South present more contestatory positions on the notion of growth by problematizing human-centeredness and embracing a radical ethics of care. Limits and TDs represent paradigmatic shifts in the history of environmentalism. Accordingly, communication scholars should consider the lessons that can be taken from these discursive fields to foster regenerative ecocultural identities and animate progressive thinking on environmental governance and its communication practices that serve both human and non-human wellbeing.