Sharing the earth: the rhetoric of sustainable development

Abstract

A critical look at the discourse surrounding a widely promoted means of environmentally sensitive economic developmentAn important contribution by widening the area of 'applied communication' research-to include the linguistic forces that would define in technocratic or humanistic rhetorics. -- J. Robert Cox, University of North Carolina at Chapel HillA provocative use of rhetorical methodology, topical ecological subject, and discourse analysis. In this sense, (Sharing the Earth) is a pioneering scholarly effort. -- Thomas Farrell, Northwestern UniversityIn Sharing the Earth, Tarla Rai Peterson explains how sustainable development -- a highly provocative concept that promises to unite environmental and economic concerns in achieving ecological integrity -- is understood, discussed, and implemented within specific communities. By analyzing the rhetoric of those who define and advocate its implementation, she identifies points of tension among the term's various interpretations and explores how the concept may be brought to bear in resolving conflicts, furthering research, and establishing ecologically sound public policy.In the first of three case studies, Peterson explores the construction of at the Earth Summit Meeting of 1992. She contends that while the summit model captures a global perspective on the subject, it fails to explain what means to the local communities where it will be implemented. In the second case study, which highlights the struggle entailed in deciding who sets the agenda for development, she contrasts the Canadian government'srecommendations for wildlife disease management in Wood Buffalo National Park with the model preferred by local residents. In the final case study, Peterson relies primarily on interviews with residents of the U.S.-Mexico border embroiled in a bitter controversy over the impact of industrial on human health. She uses the case study to clarify the communication dynamics involved when community members choose which elements of their world are most essential to sustain, which are most essential to develop, and how these elements interrelate.

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