When Whales “Speak for Themselves”: Communication as a Mediating force in Wildlife Tourism

Communicating a “New” Environmental Vernacular: A Sense of Relations-in-Place

“…In explicitly melding the ecological with the cultural in our exploration, we align with many scholars' efforts to undo cultureÁnature binaries reproduced not only in dominant Western discourses of nature but often in the very research that aims to deconstruct the binary itself (Carbaugh, 2007b;Milstein, 2008;Valladolid & ApffelMarglin, 2001). This commitment allowed for an interpretation of an ecocultural premise rooted in a cultural knowledge of place inseparable from social relations, an integrated premise that points to alternative ways of perceiving and practicing humanature that may have wider sustainable applications and speak to and for a variety of underrepresented communities.…”

“…In culturally contextualizing the largely environmental communication notion of a sense of self-in-place, we also speak to extant comparative cultural studies in which discourse is understood as a complex of practices and premises relating people to nature and place (Basso, 1992(Basso, , 1996Carbaugh, 1999;Milstein, 2008Milstein, , 2011Morgan, 2002Morgan, , 2003. Drawing attention to the importance of culture in our study allowed us to newly apply and further develop this notion of discourse and, in doing so, highlight a culturally distinctive environmental paradigm that constitutes a unitary blending of close social relations and environmental relations.…”

“…These moves are also an attempt to bypass frameworks in scholarship that can reproduce the very natureÁhuman (and ecologyÁ culture) binaries that studies attempt to critique. In our symbolic intermingling, we equally hope to indicate communication's mediating force within and between these overlapping systems (Carbaugh, 2007b;Milstein, 2008;Rogers, 1998).…”

“…In examinations of American and Canadian tourism discourses revolving around endangered whales, Milstein (2008Milstein ( , 2011 found whales are perceived as something to be identified, protected, sublimely experienced, and as a doorway or deadend to more sustainable humanature relations; however, tourist discourses largely position nature as something out there, separate from human culture and social relations. In examining meaning-making about water in New England, Morgan (2002Morgan ( , 2003 argues aspects of nature are made relevant according to local systems of communication based upon differing, deeply felt cultural premises, such as nature is something to be tamed or is a system of which people are a part.…”

Hunting the Beast on YouTube

“…The nature-culture dichotomy has been identified by Uggla (2010) in policy discourse on climate change and biodiversity, by Cassidy and Mills (2012) in a study of media representations of 'urban foxes', and by Seegert (2014) when demonstrating how 'Bruno the bear' rhetorically queered the anthropogenic landscape. Attempting to problematise this well-defined discursive division between nature and culture, Sowards (2006) demonstrated how identification with orangutans might provide an opportunity for humans to look beyond this dualism, and Milstein (2008) explored how communication mediates human-nature relationships by viewing nature not as mute but as an active agent in the communication process. Ecocritical studies of nature representations in movies, novels, poems, and other kinds of media texts have demonstrated that human's relationship to nature shows signs of anxiety and ambivalence, in that it includes on the one hand the modern understanding of humans as superior to nature -the right of people to enjoy and exploit nature on their own terms -and on the other hand, the stewardship function of humans -to care for and conserve nature (e.g.…”