Climate Justice through community and arts based research: Notes from the field

• In Event: Sociology of Development Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 3: Development & Space

Abstract

An interdisciplinary team of scholars (an interdisciplinary team of sociologists, a historian, and an artist-scholar working in participatory and sound-based research) received a seed grant to work collaboratively with local communities on Long Island to address issues of climate justice. Using the conceptual framework of cumulative impact, the aim of the grant was to understand how marginalized communities, already facing historic and contemporary systemic injustices, understood and were addressing climate justice. Using interviews, digital story maps, and sound workshops our aim was to engage community partners as co-creators of knowledge and solutions.
We have only just started our interviews and focus groups and have yet to undertake the sound workshop given the climate in the region. But our preliminary work has already raised questions about negotiating our disciplinary differences and the tensions between our academic understanding of decolonial and non-extractive research methodologies and on the ground realities of our community partners. We seek to explore these tensions and reflect on generative possibilities for alternative knowledgescapes and solutions to the intersecting crises of climate and systemic injustices.

Author

• Manisha Desai, Stony Brook University