Winner of three book awards:
* Tarla Rai Peterson Book Award in Environmental Communication
* James A. Winans-Herbert A. Wichelns Memorial Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Rhetoric/Public Address
* Diamond Anniversary Book Award from the National Communication Association for most outstanding scholarly book of the year
Half the proceeds of the book will go to Eco-Rethink, which Wakibia co-founded; the other half to Justice for Formosa Victims, founded by Nancy Bui.
Addressing plastics can feel overwhelming. Guilt, shame, anger, hurt, fear, and despair abound. Beyond Straw Men moves beyond “hot take” or strawman fallacies by illustrating how affective counterpublics, mobilized around plastics, reveal broader stories about environmental justice and social change today. Attuned to on- and offline organizing in the Global South and the Global South of the North, Pezzullo engages advocacy campaigns, public controversies, and policies, including interviews with headline-making advocates in Bangladesh, Kenya, the US, and Vietnam on her podcast,
Communicating Care.
She argues plastics became an articulator of crisis, or an entry point into contested contemporary environmental politics including carbon-heavy masculinity, carceral policies, planetary fatalism, eco-ableism, greenwashing, marine life endangerment, pollution colonialism, and waste imperialism. Attuned to plastic attachments—and detachments—Pezzullo illustrates how unsustainable patterns of the plastics-industrial complex can be resisted through imperfect but
impactful networked cultures of care.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Preface
Introduction: Care Amid an Ocean of Trouble
Chapter 1: #ThereIsNoAway:
Carbon-Heavy Masculinity and The Life/Death Cycle of Plastics
Chapter 2: Have a Coke and a #FootprintCalculator:
The Myth of Recycling and Transnational Greenwashing
Chapter 3: From #BanPlasticsKE to #ISupportBanPlasticsKE:
Pissed Off Online, Picturing Participation, and Policing Pollution
Chapter 4: Engaging #StrawlessinSeattle and #StopSucking:
The Loneliest Whale, Sporting Fun, and American Exceptionalism
Chapter 5: #SuckItAbleism Intervenes:
Eco-Normative Shaming, Voicing Justice, and Planetary Fatalism
Chapter 6: Creating #toichonca (#IChooseFish):
Trauma, Affective Art, and Big Tech Dominance
Conclusion: #BreakFree(FromPlastics)
Bibliography
Notes
Index
Resources: Listen to the Podcast: Communicating Care
Additional resources for anti-plastic pollution advocacy, including petitions & pledges
More Podcasts on plastics, ecologies, climate justice, disability justice, & care
Videos & links about what Pezzullo calls “the plastics-industrial complex”
Author/Book Featured in (sample):
“A New Report Details the Climate, Health and Human Rights Impacts of a Plastic Bottle.” June 7, 2023. Quoted by Jodi Helmer. Salon.com. https://www.salon.com/2023/06/12/a-new-report-details-the-climate-health-and-human-rights-impacts-of-a-plastic-bottle_partner/
The Guardian. April 10, 2023. Quoted by Maddie Stone. “Exxon’s new ‘advanced recycling’ plant raises environmental concerns.”
Lisa Marshall. October 25, 2022. “Rethinking Plastic.” CMCI Now Magazine.
Julie Poppen. October 5, 2022. 3 things to understand about climate justice. CU Today.
Beyond Straw Men is available for purchase at UC Press (with a 30% discount code if you use the “create a flier” link), Bookshop, Powell’s, Amazon.com, or Barnes & Noble. It is part of the University of California Press Book Series: Environmental Communication, Power, and Culture
ENDORSEMENTS & REVIEWS
“Pezzullo has produced a revelatory and revolutionary meditation on one of the most significant power struggles of our time. Beyond Straw Men features a caring and deep appreciation for the complexities, flaws, and the beauty of the ‘impure politics’ surrounding plastic pollution, while centering the perspectives and experiences of Global South communities, environmental justice and disability justice advocates, and our more-than-human relatives. Her sources of evidence are solid, her arguments are persuasive, and her writing is at once engaging, serious, humorous, and uplifting. A delightful book to sit with and be inspired by
in these challenging times!
-David N. Pellow,
author of What is Critical Environmental Justice?
“Beyond Straw Men compares the very different but interlocking national and international tensions that arise during hashtag activism and counteractivism around plastic pollution in Kenya, the United States, and Vietnam.
It provides a multisited geographic approach to describing a global
(yet local!) problem in a heterogeneous political world.”
— Max Liboiron,
author of Pollution is Colonialism
“Beyond Straw Men will be a valuable read among environmental communication and environmental justice scholars. Those particularly interested in digital activism, eco-ableism, and waste imperialism will find its detailed case studies insightful. Beyond academia, Pezzullo’s accessible writing, punctuated by moments of humor and parenthetical asides, makes the book accessible for activists, educators, and general readers alike. Above all, this is a book that will make readers second-guess taking plastics for granted, prompting a deeper reckoning with how our plastic use is ‘structured by and structure our collective lives’ (p. 1)” -excerpt of review by Sohinee Bera, International Journal of Communication
“Pezzullo successfully invites readers to critique narratives that often simplify this problem into a battle between individuals and systems, explaining the need for both approaches.” -excerpt of review by Aryan Mustamin, Fadhilatus Salamah, Zahrotin Saleha, Nur Safitri Rusiwardani & Aqmarina Fitri Ramadhani, Environmental Communication
“With its global scope, sensitivity to structural inequality and deep connection to the lived experiences of affected communities, the book creates new space for ethical and political engagement in environmental struggles. Ultimately, Beyond Straw Men urges us not simply to ‘care’ about plastic, but to critically interrogate the systems that make certain bodies and places more disposable than others, and from that awareness, to build networks of care that are more just and transformative.” -excerpt of review by Aidia Syafitri Madia, Indrayanti Indrayanti, and Muh. Akbar, Journal of Environmental Media
phaedracpezzullo.com 