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Climate Justice and Indigenous Knowledge

Tuesday 10 November 15:00 until 17:00

University of Sussex Campus : Global Studies Resource Centre, Arts C

Speaker: Professor Ngozi Finette Stewart. University of Benin, Nigeria

Part of the series: Faculty Dialogue (Centre for International Education and Sussex Sustainability Research Programme)

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Climate Justice and Indigenous KnowledgesFaculty Dialogue (Centre for International Education and Sussex Sustainability Research Programme)

Professor Ngozi Finette Stewart (Professor of Environmental Law, Policy and Ethics, University of Benin, Nigeria) opens this faculty dialogue addressing the topic 'Whose knowledge counts:: Indigenous Climate Justice in the Lake Chad Basin and the Work of Education. Her presentation (see abstract below) will be followed by comments from the respondent panel, before opening to wider discussion with the audience.

Chair: Dr Gunjan Wadhwa, CIE

Respondents: Professor Jo Alcamo, SSRP and Professor Barbara Crossouard, CIE

Abstract:

Lake Chad has lost most of its surface area since the 1960s, and the communities who have lived with the lake for generations now face a convergence of ecological loss, insecurity and displacement. Yet the dominant accounts of this crisis in policy, in the academy and in international law, are rarely written by those communities. Drawing on my recent book, Indigenous Climate Justice in the Lake Chad Basin (Springer), this dialogue asks what changes when Indigenous knowledge is treated not as a cultural footnote to climate adaptation, but as a system of law, governance and science in its own right. The presentation will trace how Indigenous practices of natural resource management, conservation, food sovereignty and health have sustained resilience in the Basin, and how gendered experiences of climate change reshape what justice must mean there. It will then turn outward to the question this Faculty Dialogue invites: if knowledge itself has been a site of colonial exclusion, then education is not a neutral bystander to climate injustice but one of its principal mechanisms; and one of its principal remedies. What would curricula, research ethics and university partnerships look like if they took Indigenous epistemologies seriously as co-equal sources of knowledge? Who gets to be an expert, an author, a teacher? These are questions for law, development, sustainability, gender studies and global studies alike, and I hope our discussions together will take them in directions I have not. The aim is less to deliver conclusions than to open a shared conversation about how our disciplines, and our classrooms, might become instruments of climate justice rather than obstacles to it.

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Posted on behalf of: Social Sciences Faculty - CIE and SSRP
Further information: https://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/5dc008f5-7e7b-4102-a7ab-b2389b8c8108@1888e824-febb-4e67-b443-2f33261bc7e4?source=copyLinkLegacyShareEventDialog
Last updated: Monday, 26 October 2026

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Centre of Excellence

The Centre for International Education is a Centre of Excellence. Our Centres of Excellence are drawing together world-leading experts and innovative approaches, creating a critical mass of knowledge, skills and training – and proving that a challenge is only impossible until it's done.

Find out more about our Centres of Excellence.

What steps can we take to build a fairer society?

Video transcript

CoE - Linda [International Education] - Social Cut – TRANSCRIPT

[TITLE CARD: ‘Centre for International Education’]

[MUSIC: Gentle piano]

Professor Linda Morrice: In the Centre for International Education, we work across six continents

[ON SCREEN TEXT: ‘Professor Linda Morrice, Co-Director, Centre for International Education’]

Professor Linda Morrice: and we work with some of the most marginalised and vulnerable communities.

[MUSIC: Deep boom as we see a photograph of a woman holding a baby]

Professor Linda Morrice: women

[Camera shutter noise as we see a photograph of a group of women refugees]

Professor Linda Morrice: refugees [Camera shutter noise as we see a photograph of a group of school children]

Professor Linda Morrice: Children who are most likely to be excluded from education. If we want a more socially just society, we have to provide education for all.

[MUSIC: Crescendos as we see Professor Linda Morrice looking over a map]

Professor Linda Morrice: When refugees arrive in new countries, there is an initial urgency to find shelter and attend to their physical needs. Professor Linda Morrice: But there's growing recognition of the critical importance of education.

[MUSIC: Light reverb as Professor Linda Morrice looks through a pile of photographs]

Professor Linda Morrice: Our research in the Centre for International Education

[Camera shutter noise as we see a photograph of children at school]

Professor Linda Morrice: has shown that successful integration is dependent on refugees being able to speak the native language of their new home.

[MUSIC: Light reverb]

Professor Linda Morrice: This enables them to engage in education, to find jobs, access health care and services, really feel part of the community.

Professor Linda Morrice: Overall

[Camera shutter noise as we see a photograph of a man and woman shopping for fresh produce at a food market]

Professor Linda Morrice: refugees with higher levels

[Camera shutter noise as we see a photograph of a family walking along the seafront in Brighton]

Professor Linda Morrice: of language, experience better wellbeing.

[Swelling whoosh crescendo]

[END CARD: University of Sussex logo ‘Impossible until it’s done ’ with URL sussex.ac.uk/impossible]

Contact

Headshot of Barbara Crossouard
CIE Director:
Professor Barbara Crossouard
B.Crossouard@sussex.ac.uk

headshot of Gunjan Wadhwa
CIE Deputy Director:
Dr Gunjan Wadhwa
gw302@sussex.ac.uk