ABOUT
Laurence Butet-Roch (PhD Environmental Studies) is an environmental media scholar, photographer and writer.
Her research, supported by a Joseph Armand-Bombardier SSHRC scholarship and the Susan Mann Dissertation Award, considers how to bear witness to environmental harms caused by resource extraction/transformation without further reinscribing frontline communities and habitats as damaged, unworthy, and thus expendable. Her project is grounded in the case study of the Canadian news media coverage of Aamjiwnaang First Nation/Chemical Valley in Southern Ontario; and uses participatory methods to create a layered visual discourse analysis and research dissemination plan. A description of one the methods employed, called 'Elaborated Images' was recently published in Visual Studies. Her research's focus draws on her professional experience as a writer and photographer focusing on environmental justice issues.
Thanks to the National Geographic COVID-19 Emergency Fund for Journalists, she recently collaborated with award-winning photographers Amber Bracken and Sara Hylton on a project exploring the ways that the fossil fuel industry in Canada was furthering their agenda despite, and, at times thanks to the pandemic. A reflection of this experience was published in NiCHE. She guest edited with Sarah Marie Wiebe and Kauwila Mahi a special issue of the Journal of Environmental Media dedicated to Emergent life beyond the climate emergency across the Pacific (2021, Vol.2:1). She has contributed encyclopedia entries for A World History of Women Photographers (Eds. Luce Lebart & Marie Robert, 2022) and the Encyclopedia of Technological Hazards and Disasters in the Social Sciences (Eds. Duane Gill, Liesel Ritchie and Nnenia Campbell).