Area of Specialization: Nature
My work focuses on the role communication plays in the nexus of humanity and ecology. My analysis is cultural, interpretive, and critical.
Current Research:
I’m currently working on two major research projects:
1. Nature Tourism Discourses: For the past several years, I've been engaged in a long-term ethnographic study focused on the interplay of communication, tourism, and endangered wildlife. My study is centrally concerned with ways communication in international tourism settings constructs views of and actions toward marine mammals and their ecosystems. My locations of focus have been the Canada-U.S. Pacific border and New Zealand's South Island.
2. Connecting Community Voices: I'm principal investigator for a collaborative, community-based participatory action research project with Conservation Voters of New Mexico, The Wilderness Society, UNM Resource Center for Raza Planning, and Arts de Aztlan. This is a restorative endeavor, working with Hispanic New Mexicans to help identify cultural environmental meaning systems, rewrite their communities into the land, and influence environmental politics and policy. We are in publication stage.
Sample Honors:
• US Fulbright Scholar/Fulbright New Zealand Senior Scholar. Research on ecocultural communication, ecotourism, and sustainability in New Zealand. January-June 2012.
• Christine L. Oravec Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Environmental Communication. National Communication Association. 2009.
• Top Papers:
International Communication Association.
Environmental Communication. 2012
National Communication Association.
Environmental Communication. 2010, 2006.
Western States Communication Association.
Environmental Communication. 2011.
Sample Published Works:
• Milstein, T. (2012). Banging on the divide: Cultural reflection and refraction at the zoo. In E. Plec (ed.) Perspectives on Human-Animal Interaction: Internatural Communication. (pp. 162-181). London: Routledge.
• Milstein, T. (2012). Survive, critique, and create: Guiding radical pedagogy and critical public scholarship with the discursive guideposts of ecopedagogy. Green Theory and Praxis Journal. 6 (1), 3-16.
• Milstein, T. (2012). Greening Communication. In S.D. Fassbinder, A. J. Nocella II & R. Kahn (Eds.), Greening the Academy: Ecopedagogy through the Liberal Arts (pp. 161-174). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
• Milstein, T. & Dickinson, E. A. (2012). Gynocentric greenwashing: The discursive gendering of nature. Communication, Culture, & Critique. 5 (4), 510-532.
• Milstein, T., & Kroløkke, C. (2012). Transcorporeal tourism: Whales, fetuses, and the rupturing and reinscribing of cultural constraints. Environmental Communication: A Journal of Nature and Culture. 6 (1), 82-100.
• Chen, Y.W., Milstein, T., Sandoval, J., Anguiano, C., & Knudsen, L. (2012). Challenges and benefits of community-based participatory research: A case of collaboratively examining ecocultural struggles in New Mexico. Environmental Communication: A Journal of Nature and Culture. 6 (3), 403-421.
• Anguiano, C., Milstein, T., De Larkin, I., Sandoval, J., & Chen, Y.W. (2012). Connecting community voices: Using a Latino/a critical race theory lens on environmental justice advocacy. Journal of International and Intercultural Communication. 6 (3), 403-421.
• Milstein, T., Anguiano, C., Sandoval, J., Chen, Y.W., & Dickinson, E. (2011). Communicating a “new” environmental vernacular: A sense of relations-in-place. Communication Monographs. 78 (4), 486-510.
• Milstein, T. (2011). Nature identification: The power of pointing and naming. Environmental Communication: A Journal of Nature and Culture. 5 (1), 3-24.
• Milstein, T. (2009). Environmental communication theories. In Stephen Littlejohn and Karen Foss (eds.). Encyclopedia of Communication Theory (pp. 344-349). Thousand Oaks: Sage.
• Milstein, T. (2009). ‘Somethin’ tells me it’s all happening at the zoo:’ Discourse, power, and conservationism. Environmental Communication: A Journal of Nature and Culture. 3 (1), 25-48.
• Hall, D., Bernacchi, L., Milstein, T., & Peterson, T.R. (2009). Calling all artists: Moving climate change from my space to my place. In D. Endres, L. Sprain, & T.R. Peterson (eds.) Social movement to address climate change: Local steps for global action (pp. 53-80). Amherst, NY: Cambria Press.
• Sprain, L., Norton, T., & Milstein, T. (2009). Step It Up! and image politics in the Pacific Northwest. In D. Endres, L. Sprain, & T.R. Peterson (eds.) Social movement to address climate change: Local steps for global action (pp. 281-308). Amherst, NY: Cambria Press.
• Milstein, T. (2008). When whales “speak for themselves”: Communication as a mediating force in wildlife tourism. Environmental Communication: A Journal of Nature and Culture. 2 (2), 173-192. (2009 Christine L. Oravec Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Environmental Communication)
• Milstein, T. (2008). The nature inside our heads: Exploring possibilities for widespread cultural paradigm shifts about nature. Drain: Journal of Contemporary Art and Culture (Sustainability Issue), 10.
• Milstein, T. (2007). Human Communication's Effects on Relationships with Animals . In Marc Bekoff (ed.) Encyclopedia of Human-Animal Relationships: A Global Exploration of Our Connections with Animals. (Vol. 3, pp. 1044-1054). Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group.