Unforgetting histories to teach for climate justice and sustainability

• In Event: Emotion, Justice, and Curriculum

Abstract

To understand and respond effectively to the climate crisis, we must move beyond technical fixes and short-term policies. This requires “unforgetting”, a critical process of recovering suppressed, marginalised, or deliberately erased historical narratives that are deeply entwined with ecological degradation and social injustice. Drawing on decolonial theory, this conceptual paper critically examines how historical amnesia enables contemporary injustices, and how unforgetting can support more equitable and transformative climate action. We offer a new climate justice pedagogical approach which centres critical systematic analysis, emotional attunement and relational accountability, as a tool for climate justice and a way of reconnecting past, present, and future in the pursuit of climate justice.

Authors

• Anne Marie Kavanagh, Dublin City University

• Caitríona Ní Cassaithe, Dublin City University