African climate activism, media and the denial of racism: The tacit silencing of Vanessa Nakate

Critical social studies have highlighted the varied methods by which climate activism is reproduced in discourse. This paper examines an incident in which an African youth climate activist, Vanessa Nakate, had her image cropped out of a media photograph taken at the World Economic Forum. Our analysis focuses on three media-based interactions with Vanessa, including two interviews with local (Ugandan) television stations and one interview with a South African broadcaster. Our analysis utilizes discursive psychology (DP) and conversation analysis (CA) to highlight and problematize the discursive and interactional strategies employed by speakers in these interviews. We note three discursive methods by which Vanessa's activism is challenged: a challenge to her ability to represent ‘African' climate activists; an undermining of Vanessa's claim that her exclusion was racially motivated; and a discourse of emotionality as foregrounding irrationality and incompetence. These three discursive strategies serve to delegitimize Vanessa's larger claim of a racially motivated act, positioning her as a naïve subject acting alone from a point of self-interest. We discuss the implications of our findings for future research in community psychology and African climate activism.

批判社会研究已揭示气候行动主义在话语中被再现的多种方式。本文考察了一起事件：非洲青年气候活动家瓦妮莎·纳卡特（Vanessa Nakate）的图像在世界经济论坛拍摄的一张媒体照片中被裁剪掉。我们的分析聚焦于与瓦妮莎的三次基于媒体的互动，包括两次接受乌干达本地电视台的采访和一次接受南非广播公司的采访。我们的分析采用话语心理学（DP）和会话分析（CA），以凸显并质疑这些采访中说话者所采用的话语与互动策略。我们发现瓦妮莎的行动主义受到三种话语方式的挑战：对她代表‘非洲’气候活动家能力的质疑；对她关于自身被排除是出于种族动机这一主张的弱化；以及将情绪化置于非理性与无能之前的话语。这三种话语策略旨在使瓦妮莎关于该行为出于种族动机的更宏大主张失去合法性，将她定位为一个出于私利独自行动的天真主体。我们探讨了这些发现对社区心理学与非洲气候行动主义未来研究的启示。