The editor of Environmental Communication would like to draw readers' attention to an omission occurred in Volume 5, Number 3 (September 2011). The introduction to the PRAXIS section by Cindy M. Spurlock and Damien Pfister was accidentally omitted.
The editor of the journal wishes to offer the authors a full and sincere apology for this omission, which is rectified below.
Reflections on The Garden
Cindy M. Spurlock & Damien Pfister
At the annual meeting of the National Communication Association (NCA) in November 2010, the NCA-Forum (NCA-F) hosted a screening of the award-winning and Academy Award-nominated documentary The Garden, directed by Scott Hamilton Kennedy. Since its inception in 2006 under the direction of Herbert Simons, Professor Emeritus of Communication at Temple University in Philadelphia, the NCA-F has organized and sponsored unique “spotlight” convention programs that address the intersections of social controversy, mass media, and public discourse. To that end, the NCA-F is “dedicated to advancing the study and practice of interactive public communication, thereby contributing to democratic deliberation on issues of widespread interest and concern. Thus, NCA-F sponsors a number of interactive panels designed to provide opportunities for NCA members to participate in a variety of deliberative forums. Such forums help build national prominence for our discipline by showcasing our commitment to improving the quality of public debate, discussion, and conversation and the expertise NCA members bring to that commitment” (NCA-F Mission Statement). Thus, NCA-F sponsors sessions designed to highlight best practices and to provide examples of public communication that represent the complexity of deliberative democracy and public dissent in contemporary American culture. Recent partners include Justice Talking and the Annenberg Public Policy Center, the Department of Homeland Security and the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), Each One Reach One, and Thousand Kites.
In our quest to spotlight the significant role that documentary films have played in the shaping of public perceptions about social, political, economic, and cultural issues in the past decade—and to raise the question about the kinds of rhetorical work that documentary films “do” when we talk about them with others—Damien and I made the decision to screen The Garden at NCA Citation2010. And, because of our commitment to robust discussion, debate, and critical inquiry, we invited director Scott Hamilton Kennedy to San Francisco to participate in a roundtable discussion with five junior scholars who had prepared written responses to the film based on their individual areas of expertise. Moreover, we invited Scott and the panelists to field questions from the audience and to engage one another in mutual dialog. Indeed, we believed that this event would prove to be an ideal catalyst for a Praxis Forum: the robust interaction among audience members, the director, and our panelists significantly shaped the manuscripts that we are pleased to make available in their revised form.
As each author suggests in the following essays, The Garden tells the story of a community garden located in the heart of South Central Los Angeles at 41st Street and Alameda. Built after the 1992 LA Riots, this garden provided more than a local source of food. Indeed, the relationships produced and sustained through the shared cultivation of the land itself enabled the formation of a unique community of practice (Wenger et al., Citation2002): the South Central Farmers (SCF). Hamilton Kennedy documents the challenges faced by the SCF as they struggled to defend and define the land. Conditioned as some of us may be to the norms of rational–critical debate that have traditionally structure public conversation—or to the antics of programs like The Bill O'Reilly Show that dismiss decorum and evidence-based arguments for ideological purposes—documentaries might appear, at first glance, to be strange stimulants for public deliberation and participation. However, documentaries may function as rich texts that generate political engagement. As our scholarly literature amply suggests, they are (often) multimodal, multivocal, and potentially able to spark conversation, as viewers reconcile the interpretations and experiences of others with their own. As noted in each of these essays, The Garden is an important film for scholars interested in rhetoric, environmental communication, documentary film, public deliberation, food studies, public health, and urban studies. Our hope is that these essays may serve to augment, complicate, and critically interrupt any easy claims made about race, identity, community, advocacy, and resistance.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Cindy M. Spurlock
Cindy M. Spurlock is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at Appalachian State University. Cindy M. Spurlock is currently completing a three-year term as members of the NCA-F Advisory BoardDamien Pfister
Damien Pfister is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Damien Pfister is currently completing a three-year term as members of the NCA-F Advisory BoardReferences
- NCA-F Mission Statement . Online. Retrieved from http://www.natcom.org
- Wenger , E. , McDermott , R. and Snyder , W. 2002 . Cultivating communities of practice: A guide to managing knowledge , Cambridge , MA : Harvard Business School Press .