ABSTRACT

This year marks the 25th anniversary of what is widely considered “the worst industrial disaster in human history”: the leak of 40 tons of methyl-isocyanate gas from the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal India, exposing an estimated 500,000 million people, killing 8-15 thousand immediately and leaving a legacy of environmental contamination that persists today. Impressive intercultural and community-based initiatives have been undertaken by survivors, researchers, media professionals, artists and advocacy groups to redress the health, environmental and social issues that ensued. Focusing on the ongoing initiatives to promote environmental health and justice in the aftermath of the Gas Leak, the study explores the factors influencing creative communication strategies and their impact, using an ecosystem approach to health – explicitly addressing social and gender equity, transdisciplinarity, community participation, and sustainability, drawing on social network analysis and participatory research methods. The study focuses on critically investigating the dynamics of participation in framing the issues, including the manner in which key concepts such as ‘health’, ‘environment’, ‘sustainability’ and ‘justice’ are dramatized and woven together through such activities as street protests, photo displays, theatrical presentations, documentaries, and web materials. Video and sound recording will be used as an aid to conducting and documenting the research, and compiled, along with found documents and footage, into an interactive exhibition and short documentary, made available in English, Hindi and possibly French, through which information and analysis can be made readily accessible to diverse audiences. My hope is that this project will help spark critical thinking on the role of creative framing in setting, challenging and reshaping environmental health agendas and the politics that techniques of creative communication embed, as well as promote cross-cultural and interdisciplinary dialogue amongst activists, artists, environmental and health professionals and researchers in the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences concerned with collectively fostering a more equitable and sustainable future.