We would like this panel to engage with critical theories around indigenous knowledges, activism and/or climate justice, to stimulate critical dialogue about approaches that have been produced in various countries and contexts such as those from the global south and indigenous knowledges from around the world promoting sustainable futures.

Burning fires: Community Psychology and the climate crisis

Mariolga Reyes Cruz, Ph.D.

Community Psychology (CP) was forged in the burning fires for social justice in the second half of the XX century. Today, the breakdown of the Earth’s climate presents an unprecedented threat to life that will “compound and magnify existing inequalities and its effects will continue to grow and worsen over time, creating ruin for current and future generations” (Naidoo, 2019). For over 150 years, scientists have raised the alarm about the impact our extractive economies have on the Earth’s biosphere. Long before them, indigenous peoples have been denouncing and resisting this path of destruction. Ultimately, the climate emergency is “una crisis civilizatoria” (Lander, 2010): a crisis of the ways of being, knowing and doing of Western civilization and the capitalist world-system. We have less than a decade to turn things around. What we mostly need is to protect and restore ecosystems while funding what helps nature and the common good. For those of us living in frontline communities, there is no time to waste. In order to address the climate crisis, we must engage in radical politics of a kind and scale that match its complexity and speed. In this presentation, I will draw from decolonial, feminist, degrowth and ecosocialist standpoints to imagine a renewed sense of urgency for CP: a CP focused on building a future of climate justice. As Greta Thunberg has said, “the house is on fire, we better act like it.”

Sembrando hacia el Futuro, Sowing toward the Future: Decolonal Participatory Action Research through Anzaldúa’s Path of Conocimiento

The call toward decoloniality/decolonization is imperative as communities confront complex regimes of neoliberal, racialized, gendered and colonial violences that threaten the wellbeing and thriving of peoples and environments. Sustaining and reviving knowledges – ways of being, doing and relating – that allow for decolonial healing, wellbeing and transformation grounded in socio-historical local Indigenous cosmologies are perhaps the most valuable tools and antidotes for uplifting communities in the struggle for creating humanizing dignified futures. The act of resisting regimes of colonial structural violence appear to be at the core of Anzaldúa’s writings (1987; 2002), especially in her process of describing fractured beings on the path toward conocimiento (a form of deep critical decolonial consciousness). Although linearly proposed, the seven stages on the path of conocimiento are mutually constitutive and interconnected. In this presentation I draw some parallels between Anzaldúa’s process of conocimiento, and critical community psychology, Global South epistemologies and community-based participatory paradigms to describe a decolonial participatory action research praxis. I describe Anzaldúa’s stages of conocomiento in relation to a critical PAR praxis of and for decoloniality. I invite panelists and audience members to consider developing decolonial PAR practices of conocimiento toward the sowing and harvesting of transformation for sustainable emancipatory futures.

References
Anzaldúa, G. E. (1987). Borderlands—La frontera: The new mestiza. San Francisco:
Spinsters/Aunt Lute.
Anzaldúa, G. E. (2002). Now let us shift .The path of conocimiento. Inner work, public acts.
This bridge we call home: Radical visions for transformation. New York: Routledge.

As the indigenous people of New Zealand, precariat Māori whānau (families) exist within a broader context of inequity that includes inequitable resource distribution, institutional racism, labour laws, penal welfare, social exclusion and colonialism. Inequity continues to grow and the lived experiences of precariat Māori whānau tell us that if solutions to inequity are to be effective, this inequity must be addressed at all levels, and in ways which enhance and prioritise whānau potential. This presentation responds to inequities experienced by Māori whānau, where service delivery frameworks, and whānau outcomes are founded upon core Māori values such as:
• Manaakitanga (caring relationships)
• Whanaungatanga (engaged relationships)
• Kotahitanga (unity through consensus)
• Whakaiti (service to others with humility)
• Hūmārie (act with gentleness and kindness)
Frameworks driven by these Māori cultural values can act as a starting point for the structural shifts necessary in society to address inequities impacting on Māori generally, which in turn open up significant possibilities for Māori whānau (families). These values become the signposts, markers and indicators of healthy public policy. The gaze is shifted away from scrutinizing individual whānau, to instead require decision-makers to demonstrate how their policies and practices are actively supporting sustainable futures for Māori whānau.