On “Heaviness”, Racialized Emotions, and “Big” Emergencies: Community Knowledge and Education for Social Justice Amid Climate Coloniality

• In Event: Climate Emotion, Agency, and Justice in Formal and Informal Settings

Abstract

Objectives. Most of the research related to disaster education has been conducted outside of the U.S. context (e.g., Pietrocola et al., 2021); only a few studies have examined disaster preparedness in the education domain in the U.S context (e.g., Glik et al., 2014). Thus, there is a glaring gap in research related to disaster preparedness, justice, and resilience in science education. In response, this study examined the experiences and reflections of community members and leaders, families, and science teachers in the aftermath of the 2022 Buffalo Blizzard in terms of general winter patterns, the actual blizzard, racialized emotions and their conceptions of the weather event. The following questions guided the study: What are the experiences, reflections, and racialized emotions of community leaders and members, families, and science teachers about winter weather patterns, and the 2022 Buffalo Blizzard in terms of general winter patterns, the actual blizzard, racialized emotions and their conceptions of the weather event? What are the emergent factors that require attention to decolonize narratives of coloniality and heaviness associated with the 2022 Buffalo blizzard?

Theoretical Framework. Understandings of performative environmentalism and climate coloniality (Anantharaman, 2025) and the ways in which coloniality informs the disproportionate impact of extreme weather events for minoritized and disenfranchised communities, frames this study. We also draw from Valayden’s (2025) conceptualization of “heaviness” as a “political category to conceptualize how daily emergencies that spread out across uneven geographies are structured and exacerbated by climate coloniality” (p. 82). Heaviness is a condition of existence. In the move from coloniality to decolonization, Valayden proposes engaging with heaviness along four lines: as condition, sociality, ethics, and materiality.

Methods. A social design-based experiment (SDBE) (Gutiérrez et al., 2020) approach guided this study. The core principles of SDBE relevant to this project focus on history and historicity; prolepsis, bringing the past to the present; employing a dynamic model of culture; and emphasizing resilience and change, toward an end goal of transformation and sustainability. This approach is appropriate for this project because it is iterative and first seeks to understand urgent issues and is consistent with our goal of using this understanding to co-develop a disaster justice and resilience science education curriculum framework.

Data Sources. The main data sources are individual semi-structured interviews, coalition discussions, and artifacts (i.e., articles and news reports).

Findings. Findings revealed that Buffalo’s urban, racially minoritized communities experienced double injustices; while they contributed least to climate problems, they endured disproportionate impact before, during, and after the blizzard. The racialized reflections and emotions (Bonilla-Silva, 2019) reinforced enduring structural, systemic problems, which (re)produced colonial relations via responses, or lack thereof, to residents’ needs. For residents most impacted, daily life emergencies resulted in a “big” emergency that amplified a “heaviness” of coloniality.

Significance. To disrupt the (re)production of colonized narratives related to disaster preparedness and justice in science education, it is important to confront lines of “heaviness”, understand the history of uneven geographies and its people, engage structural problems, and configure future pathways that humanize and uplift the voices of people impacted by performative environmentalism and climate coloniality.

Authors

• Noemi Waight, University at Buffalo - SUNY

• Wonyong Park, University of Southhampton

• Jennifer Tripp, University at Buffalo - SUNY

• Fatemeh Mozaffari, University at Buffalo - SUNY