Indigenous Knowledge systems’ role in addressing sea level rise and dried water source: A Fijian case study
By Kolaia Raisele and Rosiana Lagi
Overview
Global responses to the climate crisis continue to focus on Western theoretical perspectives and scientific solutions but overshadow community-based responses by indigenous communities. An effective response to the climate crisis in the Pacific Islands needs the Pacific Islanders' own story and their own response systems. This study will explore the role of Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) in addressing sea-level rise (SLR) and dried water sources (DWS) drawing from a case study in Vatutavui village, Fiji. Using the methods of focus group discussion and individual interviews, the study will identify how members of Vatutavui village are responding to SLR and DWS using their Indigenous knowledge and practices. The paper will then weave the findings of this study together with contemporary discourses of social ecological resilience to the climate crisis. We discovered that Indigenous Knowledge System (IKS) continue to cement their significance in Indigenous Fijian villages, and it is a foundational response to the climate crisis. Placing emphasis on IKS in addressing the climate crisis in Vatutavui had positive ecological and social cultural implications.
Suggested citation
Raisele, K., Lagi, R. (2023): Indigenous Knowledge Systems' role in addressing sea level rise and dried water source: A Fijian case study. Pacific Dynamics: Journal of Indisciplinary Research, Vol 76 (1).
‘Curui’: weaving climate justice and gender equality into Fijian educational policies and practices
By Rosiana Lagi, Ledua Waqailiti, Kolaia Raisele, Lorena Sanchez Tyson & Charlotte Nussey
Overview
This paper takes inspiration from the Indigenous Fijian practice of ‘curui’ – weaving or patching together – as a metaphor to explore connections between climate justice, gender equality, and education in Fijian policies and practices. The paper argues that neither gender equality nor education can be ‘silver bullets’ for the huge challenges that the climate crisis raises, particularly for small island developing states (SIDS) such as Fiji that exist at the sharp end of the crisis. The paper contributes close analysis of Fijian national climate change policies and development plans from 2010, identifying the ways in which these policies frame and discuss the connections between climate, gender, and education, and asking whether these policies acknowledge traditional ecological knowledges, and the extent to which they are aligned with notions of justice. It argues that connected approaches to education, centred in Indigenous knowledges and ontologies, have thus far been insufficiently included in Fiji’s policies.
Suggested citation
Lagi, R., Waqailiti, L., Raisele, K., Sanchez Tyson, L. and Nussey, C. (2023) ‘Curui’: weaving climate justice and gender equality into Fijian educational policies and practices,Comparative Education
Internationalisation and Climate Impacts of Higher Education: Towards an Analytical Framework
By Tristan McCowan
Overview
Internationalisation of higher education has diverging implications for climate change, on the one hand entailing greenhouse gas emissions through mobility, but also contributing to climate action through international collaboration. These apparent contradictions and resulting trade-offs present significant challenges to universities. This paper puts forward a framework for understanding the combination of impacts, the interactions between them and implications for the climate crisis. It distinguishes between three dimensions of internationalisation: actors (movements of students and staff), practices (integration of the international into curriculum and research) and influence (the global reach of the various impacts of the university). Internationalisation in these three dimensions can have positive or negative implications for climate action and sustainability, through direct impacts (greenhouse gas emissions) and indirect ones (changes in individuals, societal structures, knowledge and technologies). Implications are drawn out for the actions and strategies of universities, as well as for the global system of higher education.
Suggested citation
McCowan, T. (2023). Internationalisation and Climate Impacts of Higher Education: Towards an Analytical Framework. Journal of Studies in International Education
Climate change and the role of universities: the potential of land-based teacher education and agroecology
By Hage, S., Molina, M. and McCowan, T.
Overview
This article provides a critical reflection on climate change in contemporary times, addressing the responses made by universities through land-based teacher education courses with a agroecology approach. It draws on historical dialectical materialism, with reference to land-based higher education and the Transforming Universities for a Changing Climate project. Significant possibilities are identified for the critical development of educators with an understanding of agroecology linked to the material production of life in the farming territories.
Suggested citation
Hage, S., Molina, M. and McCowan, T. (2022) Climate change and the role of universities: the potential of land-based teacher education and agroecology. Revista Brasileira de Política e Administração da Educação, 38 (1).
Building university capabilities to respond to climate change through participatory action research: towards a comparative analytical framework
By Nussey, C., Frediani, A.A., Lagi, R., Mazutti, J. and Nyerere, J.
Overview
This paper aims to explore how the principles of participatory action research (PAR) articulate with questions of climate justice. Drawing on three qualitative case studies in Brazil, Fiji and Kenya, the paper explores university institutional capabilities, asking how the principles of mobilising PAR to support transformative outcomes can further climate justice. The paper argues that for participatory action research to become a pathway to build universities’ capabilities, key considerations are needed. PAR needs to: a) move beyond change in individual behaviour to respond to climate change and affect institutional norms, procedures and practices; b) recognise and partner with marginalised groups whose voice and experiences are at the periphery of climate debate, enabling reciprocal flows of impact and knowledge between universities and wider societies; and c) foster ‘relationships of equivalence’ with actors within as well as outside university to influence university governance and wider climate related policy-making processes.
Suggested citation
Nussey, C., Frediani, A.A., Lagi, R., Mazutti, J. and Nyerere, J. (2022) Building university capabilities to respond to climate change through participatory action research: towards a comparative analytical framework, Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, Volume 23, Issue 1, pp. 95-115
Rethinking the unthinkable: what can educational engagements with culture offer the climate crisis?
By Charlotte Nussey
Overview
This essay considers the ways in which education and cultural relations offers lessons, new ideas and ways of talking and listening about the climate emergency. Nussey argues that the climate emergency cannot be addressed by technical responses and innovations alone, but requires a socio-cultural response, inclusive of culture and education. The essay spotlights theClimate-U project and askshow higher education institutions in the Global South can contribute to tackling climate change. This essay is part of the British Council’s Climate Connection
Suggested citation
Nussey, C. (2021) Rethinking the unthinkable: what can educational engagements with culture offer the climate crisis?, British Council Cultural Relations Collection (online).