In representations of climate change, discourses of shared planetary crisis, the ‘we’ of humanity contend with discourses which emphasise the cascading inequalities of place, class and gender. The Pacific contributes little to climate change yet suffers greatly. But in understanding the experiences and redressing the effects of climate change in Oceania, we need to move beyond distant representations of victimhood which occlude the depths of indigenous knowledge and agency. Hence 350.org proclaim: ‘We are not drowning, we are fighting’. Environmental scientists need to appreciate how Pacific people conjugate environmental changes with cultural transformations in ways which confound the nature/culture binary. This session will bring together recent and emergent research on climate change across Oceania – in rural and urban locales, national, regional and global fora, focusing on how the differences and inequalities of place, class and gender are experienced and represented in daily dialogues, political projects and media representations. We invite presentations from researchers and artists working across disciplines, regions and genres, particularly those of Oceanic ancestry.
Paper submissions are closed