Abstract ▼ AI-Helper

This paper addresses eco-discourse by the corporate rhetor that emerged in thewake of two environmental disputes. While such green business rhetoric might beconventionally viewed as a category of crisis communication, it is treated here asan instrument of corporate sensemaking and discursive struggl...

This paper addresses eco-discourse by the corporate rhetor that emerged in thewake of two environmental disputes. While such green business rhetoric might beconventionally viewed as a category of crisis communication, it is treated here asan instrument of corporate sensemaking and discursive struggle. Specifically, Ianalyze the "language games" between the Royal Dutch/Shell Group and its criticsthat arose over Shell UK's plans to decommission the Brent Spar and Shell Nigeria's operations in Ogoniland, a tribal community in the Niger Delta. I demonstrate that Shell's rhetorical contests had constitutive effects on its environmentaland human rights policies and practices and led to its cautious embrace of thelanguage of sustainable development. Combining sensemaking and Foucauldianapproaches, I argue that such local conflicts over meaning-making around the natural environment must be understood in terms of discursive struggle at the socio-political level where they both reflect and influence the dynamics of cultural andinstitutional change.

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