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Author: Farhana Sultana, Michael Pryke
  • Video
  • 50 minutes

Voices from the Global South: confronting climate coloniality

Updated Wednesday, 20 November 2024

Professor Farhana Sultana delivered a keynote to launch the ‘Voices from the Global South’ project, a collaboration between the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) (with the Institute of British Geographers), the International Geographical Union and The Open University. It was held at the RGS, London in June 2024. In her keynote Professor Sultana engages diverse perspectives on the climate crisis, emphasising the significance of incorporating insights from academic, policy, and indigenous advocacy groups in confronting ongoing climate coloniality. Watch her keynote in the series of seven videos below.

Find out more about The Open University's Geography courses and qualifications.              


Listening without meddling, challenging collectively

In my mind, an important contribution of these films, taken together, is how powerful they are in the messaging of how to challenge and confront climate coloniality.

Transcript (PDF document37.4 KB) .

Good COP, bad COP

Global South countries without power and influence over climate change policy debates means there is chronic under-representation in all contexts, from policymaking to negotiations of bilateral and multilateral trade relations.


Transcript (PDF document31.9 KB) .

Different ways of knowing the world

One of the important contributions of the films is that indigenous voices come through in very clear and coherent ways, and they’re incredibly powerful in reminding us that this is critically important to understand. 


Transcript (PDF document24.3 KB) .

Ongoing climate coloniality: shifting the narrative

Climate change is colonial capitalism, but it is particularly an ongoing climate coloniality, which means it is about coloniality of inequities and hierarchies of knowledge systems, alongside hierarchies of power relations that persist.


Transcript (PDF document35.1 KB) .

Decolonising to reimagine better futures

We need to reimagine better futures. What I found in observing these films is that some of these voices do help us think about how this is possible and rethink what’s at stake and what are the challenges we need to recognise and confront.


Transcript (PDF document35.3 KB) .

Flipping power, pedagogy and praxis

What we see across the films is how power operates and the varied ways that processes of legitimising and delegitimising operate materially and discursively. At the same time, how certain voices, concerns, issues and framings are rendered invisible, illegible or devalued in different ways. 


Transcript (PDF document49.2 KB) .

Listening, learning, questioning 

In the end decolonisation is not about having a seat at the table but burning the table down and building something much better for the future.


Transcript (PDF document37.3 KB) .


Further information and acknowledgements

Find out more about D113 Global Challenges: social sciences in action, and the qualifications Geography and Environmental Studies offers.

Acknowledgements

Thank you to Professor Farhana Sultana, India Logan-Riley, Steve Ratuva, Saleemul Huq, Mia Mottley, Tracey Bunda, Hugo Romero, Philile Mbatha, Poshendra Satyal and Michael Meadows for contributing to the videos.


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