Link to Session Platform

Chairs(s):

Shaina Sadai, University of Massachusetts

; Stephanie Rutherford, Trent University

Description:

Organizers: Shaina Sadai (University of Massachusetts) and Stephanie Rutherford (Trent University)


Sponsored by:

Animal Geographies Specialty Group

Climate Specialty Group

Cultural and Political Ecology Specialty Group

Ethics, Justice, and Human Rights Specialty Group

Indigenous Peoples Specialty Group



The climate crisis is impacting all aspects of the Earth system, and all of its inhabitants (Boer, 2020; IPCC, 2021). Climate justice is a key consideration in analyzing, assessing, and responding to these impacts (Gach, 2019). However liberal, anthropocentric notions of justice are framed around individuals and centered exclusively on humans. Multispecies justice seeks to radically expand conceptions of justice allowing for broader recognition of the diverse set of interrelated beings, processes, and systems on Earth (Celermajer et al., 2021; Verlie, 2021). Multispecies climate justice in particular draws on multispecies justice theory to enhance understanding of the interrelated ecologies of the climate crisis (Tschakert et al., 2021). It aims to deepen understanding by looking holistically at how climate and environmental change are manifesting in space and time and across species. Existing scholarship has already begun charting these paths by providing nuanced perspectives of multispecies entanglements (Jones, 2019; Narayanan & Bindumadhav, 2018).

In seeking to frame conversations of multispecies climate justice we must not reproduce existing hierarchies and exclusions. As such we must not lose sight of the way that notions of "human" are also embedded in hierarchies with prototypical humans being characterized by those who are white, male, cis, and able-bodied (Jackson, 2013). Rather we seek to upset these dominant hierarchies. Multispecies justice must also be a decolonizing practice in which Indigenous ways of knowing and relationalities are centered and not just rearticulated through colonial scholarship (Whyte, 2017; Todd, 2016; Watene, 2016).

This session invites papers aiming to enhance understanding of climate justice through a multispecies lens. Examples may include:

· Intersectional approaches to and practices of multispecies climate justice
· Theoretical and empirically rooted conversations around dismantling anthropocentric and liberal ideas of justice
· Articulations of relational and materialist approaches to climate justice
· Empirical case studies exploring the meaning and practice of multispecies climate politics
· Modes and practices of interspecies solidarity
Please submit abstracts of no more than 250 words to Shaina Sadai (srogstad@geo.umass.edu) and Stephanie Rutherford (srutherford@trentu.ca) by October 17, 2021. We are aiming to have an in-person session.



References:

Boer, M. M., de Dios, V. R., & Bradstock, R. A. (2020). Unprecedented burn area of Australian mega forest fires. Nature Climate Change, 10, 171–172.

Celermajer, D., Schlosberg, D., Rickards, L., Stewart-Harawira, M., Thaler, M., Tschakert, P., Verlie, B., & Winter, C. (2021). Multispecies justice: theories, challenges, and a research agenda for environmental politics. Environmental Politics, 30(1–2), 119–140. doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2020.1827608

Celermajer, D., Chatterjee, S., Cochrane, A., Fishel, S., Neimanis, A., O'Brien, A., Srinivasan, A., Reid, S., Schlosberg, D., & Waldow, A. (2020). Justice through a multispecies lens. Contemporary Political Theory, 19, 475–512. doi.org/10.1057/s41296-020-00386-5

Gach, E. (2019). Normative shifts in the global conception of climate change: The growth of climate justice. Social Sciences, 8(1), 24.

IPCC, 2021: Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Masson-Delmotte, V., P. Zhai, A. Pirani, S. L. Connors, C. Péan, S. Berger, N. Caud, Y. Chen, L. Goldfarb, M. I. Gomis, M. Huang, K. Leitzell, E. Lonnoy, J.B.R. Matthews, T. K. Maycock, T. Waterfield, O. Yelekçi, R. Yu and B. Zhou (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press. In Press.

Jackson, Z. I. (2013). Animal: New directions in the theorization of race and posthumanism. Feminist Studies, 39(3), 669–685.

Jones, B. (2019). Bloom/split/dissolve: Jellyfish, HD, and multispecies justice in Anthropocene Seas. Configurations, 27(4), 483–499.

Narayanan, Y. and Bindumadhav, S., 2018. ‘Posthuman cosmopolitanism’ for the Anthropocene in India: urbanism and human-snake relations in the Kali Yuga. Geoforum [Special Issue: Encountering naturecultures in the urban Anthropocene, eds, Louise Johnson, Michele Lobo and David Kelly], 106, 402-410. doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2018.04.020

Radomska, M. (2017). The anthropocene, practices of storytelling, and multispecies justice. Angelaki, 22(2), 257–261.

Todd, Z., 2016. An indigenous feminist's take on the ontological turn: 'ontology' is just another word for colonialism. Journal of Historical Sociology, 29 (1), 4–22. doi:10.1111/johs.12124

Tschakert, P., Schlosberg, D., Celermajer, D., Rickards, L., Winter, C., Thaler, M., Stewart-Harawira, M., & Verlie, B. (2021). Multispecies justice: Climate-just futures with, for and beyond humans. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 12(2), 1–10. doi.org/10.1002/wcc.699

Watene, K. (2016). Valuing nature: M"aori philosophy and the capability approach. Oxford Development Studies, 44(3), 287–296.

Whyte, K. (2017). Indigenous climate change studies: indigenizing futures, decolonizing the anthropocene. English Language Notes, 55 (1), 153–162. doi:10.1215/ 00138282-55.1-2.153

Verlie, B. (2021). Climate justice in more-than-human worlds. Environmental Politics, doi: 10.1080/09644016.2021.1981081

Non-Presenting Participants Agenda