Frontlines of crisis, forefront of change : climate justice as an intervention into (neo)colonial climate action narratives and practices
Name
1003283701-MIT.pdf
Description
Full printable version
Size
10.81 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
30e391a7e5af002d04c5ce531553177b
Author(s)
Arthur, Katie (Katie Louise)
Advisor(s)
Sasha Costanza-Chock.
Alternative Title
Climate justice as an intervention into (neo)colonial climate action narratives and
Date Issued
2017
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
Indigenous peoples, Small Island States, the Global South, women, youth, and the global poor, all face disproportionate impacts from climate change, a fact captured in the adage "the least responsible are most vulnerable." Recognising the Global North as the instigators and benefactors of a carbon economy built on the continuing oppression and exploitation of black and brown communities, in this thesis I highlight the on-going colonial violence involved in both extractive industry and the mainstream climate action movements of the Global North. I look at the stories we tell about climate change and how they legitimize a colonial structuring of power: from mainstream media coverage of the London Climate March in 2015 to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) newsroom editorials. I investigate how communities and grassroots organisations are using radical media strategies to articulate climate justice as a transformative decolonial intervention from the frontlines of Standing Rock to the financial district of London. I follow the argument of activist groups including The Wretched of the Earth, the UK Tar Sands Network, the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, and the Indigenous Environmental Network; that climate action will be unfair and ineffective until it recognises the intersecting systems of power which created and maintain the inequalities of the colonial carbon economy. I argue that radical media strategies, on the streets and on the airwaves, are central to the articulation of climate justice and the contestation of hegemonic meanings of climate action that legitimise colonial violence.
Description
Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Comparative Media Studies/Writing, 2017.
"June 2017." Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 104-115).
Subjects
Comparative Media Studies.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Program in Comparative Media Studies/Writing
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