Sponsored by the Department of Communication; Co-sponsored by LISO.

This presentation explores the United Nations conference that led to the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), an international UN treaty that came into effect in May 2004, establishing new global rules for the production, use, import, export, release and disposal of toxic chemicals known as persistent organic pollutants (POPs). Such international conferences are becoming increasingly important as “field-configuring events” which have the potential to develop coordinated solutions to complex societal problems by bringing about significant change in institutional fields and the organizations that comprise it.  This study shows how a field-configuring event generates multiple discursive spaces in which the production, distribution and consumption of texts leads to the emergence of new narratives. These narratives result in organizational and institutional change through three particular mechanisms: interpretation, translation and domination.