Rethinking Environmental Sciences and Social Media from the Global South: Rural and Indigenous Communication and Audiovisual Communication in Social Media

Abstract

This article offers a reflection on environmental communication as a discipline of care as an opportunity to imagine and reconstruct, both theoretically and practically, the role of environmental communication in the global south, under an inclusive perspective that represents one of the greatest challenges for environmental communication today. In this essay, I recount several of the experiences I have had in the environmental sciences: First, I share a teaching project, a project of an environmental science degree at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) that involved working with rural communities, an environmental NGO. Secondly, the construction of a teaching material for an endangered indigenous language. Third, a video project involving socio-environmental research as part of the Institute for Research in Ecosystems and Sustainability of the UNAM, which was coordinated across different regions of Mexico. Fourth, I reflect on an investigation with digital native media and its audiovisual communication in social media. In conclusion, I consider how the move to emphasize care in an age of environmental crises might provide space for greater inclusion of global south praxis.