Racial Capitalism and the Climate Crisis: Implications for Climate Justice Pedagogy

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 12
  In Roundtable Session: Designing Socially Just Opportunities for Equitable and Diverse Environmental and Climate Change Education

Abstract

In this conceptual paper, I elaborate on three considerations on how to pedagogically address the relationship between racial capitalism and the climate crisis. First, I argue that climate pedagogy must name ecological breakdown as a form of ongoing colonial violence. I suggest that this ‘naming’ work in projects of pedagogy puts into question what kinds of logics we hope to dismantle and which we hope to sustain, in working towards justice-oriented futures. Second, I look to pedagogies which engage cultural works that re-historicize the climate crisis through the viewpoints of BIPoC cultural producers. Last, I consider the epistemic challenges of enacting climate justice pedagogies in ways that meaningfully engage diverse knowledges and different ways of knowing.

Author

• Preeti Nayak, University of Toronto