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2 Preparing for the field trip

Before we embark on the International virtual field trip it is worth taking a moment or two to prepare. Like all field trips, it is important to think about what it is you will be exploring, how to make sense of what you encounter in relation to what you have already learned in your studies, and why it is important to listen carefully to those people you meet along the way.

As the International field trip stretches across many different countries, you will gather a lot of information. Don’t worry, you aren’t expected to remember everything you will hear. Rather, we hope you take time to pay attention to the different experiences and understandings of the climate crisis to gain a fuller appreciation of why geographers, and others, need to listen to the many voices across the Global South.

2.1 Where are you going?

From Glasgow, Scotland, to Cape Town, South Africa, to Bangladesh and on to Uganda.

• The field trip begins in Glasgow, UK, at COP 26, held in 2021. COP is an international climate meeting held each year by the United Nations. Though clearly located in the Global North, the opening video is very much in the spirit of the whole field trip: an invitation to see things differently, to try and understand the impact of the climate crisis from the standpoint of the populations across the Global South, and a call to listen to voices not often heard on the global stage, not even at venues such as COP. 
• The second video emphasises the importance of standpoint – that is, of context – in this case of Cape Town, South Africa. The simple message that ‘geography matters’ to understanding the climate crisis more fully, how its impact is woven into issues of inequality and the legacies of European colonialism, is taken up and explored in the third video. 
• In the third video, the contributors speak of their experiences in Bangladesh and Uganda and the difficulties of getting their voices heard in a policy world dominated by the Global North. In many ways, this third video offers a natural break in the series as the following three ask very direct questions.

Before you go on to watch the next three videos, you’ll undertake a short activity to reflect on what you’ve seen and heard so far, and to start to make some connections between the places you’ve ‘visited’.

And now to Aboriginal Australia, Chile, Fiji and Aotearoa (New Zealand), and then to Bangladesh and Nepal.

• In the first of the final three videos, contributors from Australia and Chile raise the question ‘Whose crisis, whose knowledge?’ as they introduce the need to change the narrative that dominates how the climate crisis is understood.
• Contributors from Fiji and Aotearoa (New Zealand) feature in the fifth video and develop this idea further to explore what might be involved in changing the dominant climate narrative, and why doing so is important. The contributors make clear that the dominant climate narrative is scripted largely by the powerful countries of the Global North, something that you notice on in the opening video from COP 26 in Glasgow. Nevertheless, as the contributors suggest, that narrative can be changed. After all, as John Allen (2003) reminds us, power is not a thing to be possessed, but the outcome of social relations. And much like power itself, dominant narratives are always open to challenge. 
• A glimpse of this possibility is conveyed in the last video, which explores how Nepal and Bangladesh have started to successfully adapt to the climate crisis, and what the Global North can learn from them. It ends with all contributors giving their thoughts on what geographers, and others, might learn from listening to multiple voices, experiences and knowledges from across the many contexts ‘visited’ during this International virtual field trip. 

So, that’s the itinerary of your International virtual field trip. However, before you set off, you’ll need to take a closer look at what you will be expected to do once you embark on it, and how this helps to contribute towards your assessments. The approach to learning adopted focuses on observing, listening, questioning and note taking. 

2.2 Taking notes?

You might want to make use of a notebook to help you keep track of your thoughts as you embark on the field trip. You could write separate notes for each video, but bear in mind that Videos 3, 4, 5 and 6 include contributions from two locations, such as Australia and Chile in Video 4. There’s a strong chance that you could feel the need to jot down everything you hear and notice on the first viewing; there’s a lot to take in! The suggestion is that you just watch and listen to the video on the first viewing, and then watch a second time making notes as you do so.

A reminder: you’ll find that contributors in all the videos mention phrases, events, policies, and organisations. Sometimes they explain what they are referring to, at other times they don’t. Don’t worry. You don’t have to know everything about all that is mentioned in each video. As with any geography field trip, people who speak to you as a group will often run through a lot of material and information. Not everything they say must be noted and learned. Field trips generally are not simply fact-finding missions. The same guidance applies to the International virtual field trip that lies ahead.

If there is something, such as the ‘Doctrine of Discovery’ mentioned by India Logan-Riley in Video 1, that you want to find out more about, make a note of it and explore the resources under the video title in your list of ‘Independent learning’ resources at the end of the week, there may be more information about the topic provided there. You’ll find links to useful background material for all of the videos (for example, on the terms ‘Global North and Global South’, or on the ‘Paris Agreement’, mentioned in Video 1) in the Independent learning section.