Announcing the Second Installment of the Caribbean Feminisms Series: On Environmental and Climate Justice
Co-curated by scholar-activists Nana Brantuo and Dr. Andrea N. Baldwin, the second installment of the Caribbean Feminisms Series interrogates climate and environmental justice in the Caribbean.
For the second installment of Black Women Radicals’ Caribbean Feminisms Series, co-curators Nana Brantuo and Dr. Andrea N. Baldwin honor and celebrate Caribbean women and gender expansive people at the vanguard of climate and environmental justice. For more information about the first installment of the Caribbean Feminisms Series and to view the reading list from the series, please visit here and here.
About Caribbean Feminisms: Environmental and Climate Justice Series
The origins of climate and environmental change in the Caribbean arguably begin with the violent upheaval and removal of Indigenous environmental knowledges, practices, and philosophies and mass trafficking and enslavement of Africans for the purpose of mass cultivation and distribution of sugar, cotton, tobacco, coffee, rice, and indigo. Colonial legacies of resource extraction and depletion persist into the 21st century as the Caribbean experiences the extreme shocks and burdens of climate and environment change.
Over the past two decades, the region has experienced more intense hurricanes and tropical storms, rising sea levels, frequent floods and droughts, rising air temperatures, the acidification of the ocean, and greater extremes and variability in rainfall. Additionally, environmental degradation as a result of water depletion and mass deforestation, has led to an overall loss in biodiversity. What is more, the Caribbean archipelago also consists of active volcanoes and is susceptible to and experiences frequent and intense earthquakes as seen with the magnitude 7.2 earthquake in Haiti earlier this year.
Caribbean women and gender expansive folk, while uniquely vulnerable to the impacts of these changes and events, are at the forefront of local and international research, activism, and advocacy. They are part of a cadre of researchers, delegates and ambassadors, educators, first responders, and organizers, who are raising awareness about the feminization and masculinization of emergency response, labor precarity, economic, public health, and social impacts of displacement, and the resilience of Caribbean people in the fight for climate and environmental justice.
In this series, we bring together Caribbean women and gender expansive people who are climate and environmental activists, researchers, policy makers and advocates from across the region for conversations on the personal and political effects of climate and environmental change on the lives and livelihood of the people of the Caribbean. We honor and center their experiences with, responses to, and navigation of climate and environmental change and learn more about their perspectives on climate and environmental governance and adaptation.
PAST EVENTS
At the Vanguard: Honoring Caribbean Climate and Environmental Justice Series
The first event in the “Climate and Environmental Justice Series” is “At the Vanguard: Honoring Caribbean Climate and Environmental Justice Series”, which was held on Tuesday, September 28th from 6:30-8:00 PM EST.
The event focused on the legacy of climate and environmental advocacy and activism in the Caribbean region and honored Marjahn Finlayson, Dr. Adelle Thomas, Phylicia Lavia Alexander, and Dr. Angelique V. Nixon, who are at the forefront of climate and environmental justice. You can watch the event here.