Feeling climate change to the bone: emotional topologies of climate

Abstract

This paper addresses climate change through collaborative work with social movement organisations in the Philippines. We contend that the tendency of work on climate change, social resilience and climate justice to ignore epistemological questions and proceed through technocentric dominant frames can lead to partial responses that support the status quo, contribute to slow (or fast) violence, and enhance ongoing processes of marginalisation. Instead, we argue, there is a need to co-develop analyses with those most affected. The experiences shared in this paper speak to complex knowings of climate and the intimate hurts of disaster, and provide rich scope for resistance and change. We find knowledges to be affective, emotional and relational, and deeply imbued with power relations. These insights lead us to theorise a topological angle on the knowings and beings of climate: to turn to emotional topologies. In seeking to elaborate on emotional topologies of climate, we draw on the concept of knowledge spaces to better understand meanings and practices of climate as emergent motleys of linked people, sites, affective process, activities and technologies. In the emergent nature of these spaces, there is scope for disruption, re-ordering and resistance.

Keywords:

• the Philippines
• climate change
• social movements
• emotional geographies
• Indigenous knowledges
• epistemological politics

Acknowledgements

We thank the inspiring and truly courageous people involved with MASIPAG and other peasant and Indigenous social movements of the Philippines. In particular, we acknowledge those organisers who took the time to share insights with us for this article. We also thank the anonymous reviewers, the guest editor Tanya Jakimow and the other authors in this special edition for their insights and support.

Disclosure statement

There is no potential conflict of interest.

Notes

1 Typhoon Yolanda was known internationally as Haiyan, and Typhoon Frank as Fengshen.

2 The colonial history of the Philippines includes a Spanish colonial period from 1521 to 1898 and subsequent US control until 1946, with periods of Japanese occupation in the Second World War. Many of the inequalities that were established within these periods remain important within a complex postcolonial reality (Rafael 1988; Schirmer and Rosskamm Shalom 1987).

3 Topology has been the topic of several discussions within geography and the social sciences, including in Dialogues in Human Geography (volume 1, issue 3), and special editions such as ‘Topologies of Culture’ in Theory, Culture, and Society (volume 29, issue 4–5) and ‘Topological Sense-Making’ in Space and Culture (volume 16, issue 2).

4 Designated documenters/translators in workshops translated to and from the different languages in use by the group, including in written form as notes were compiled using collaborative notetaking processes. In interviews, a translator was always present even if the interview, or parts of it, was conducted in a common language. This was to build rapport, to assist in the communication of cultural cues, to allow for participants to switch languages and to explain concepts that might not easily translate. As such, translation was a flexible, even conversational, process that became part of the interpretation and analysis (Venuti 2000).

5 Following discussions of our approved ethical protocols and in discussions around the research process with participants and their organisations, those interviewed through the research chose whether to have their words attributed directly to them or to remain anonymous. All quotes have been checked and re-approved by those quoted in the article. The organisations elected not to be listed as co-authors on the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellowship [grant number FT160100353]; and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Australian Award Fellowship [Project Number 160086 – Building Resilience and Agri-Food Systems in Asia through Sustainable and Equitable Practices].

Notes on contributors

Sarah Wright

Sarah Wright is a Professor and Future Fellow in geography and development studies. She works in critical development studies, particularly on geographies of weather, and Indigenous and postcolonial geographies. She has worked with Filipino social movements for 25 years and is part of two Indigenous-led research collectives, the Bawaka Collective and Yandaarra. She has written 10 books and over 50 academic journal articles. Her books have been awarded the Prime Minister’s Literary award for non-fiction (Songspirals, 2020), awarded as an ‘Honour book’ for the Children’s Book Council of Australia (Welcome to My Country, 2014) and shortlisted for the National Book Award of the Philippines (Stories of Struggle, 2019). She is a member of the editorial collective of Progress in Environmental (Sage).

Jagjit Plahe

Jagjit Plahe is Associate Professor of international political economy in the Department of Management at Monash University, Australia. Her research interests include agroecology; global food security; global agri-food production networks; the development, management and organisation of equitable and sustainable food systems in Asia; and, more recently, postcolonial analysis of small farmers’ movements in Asia. She is co-editor (with Professor Emerita Vicziany) of a special issue in the journal South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies on food security and traditional knowledge in India. She has published widely on agri-food studies in journals including the Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Contemporary Asia and International Negotiation: A Journal of Theory and Practice.

Gavin Jack

Gavin Jack is Professor of management in the Department of Management at Monash University, Australia. His research interests include: postcolonial theory and analysis of management, organisation and marketing topics; gender and diversity in the workplace, including an ongoing team project on women’s experience of menopause at work; post-development theory; and sustainable and equitable agriculture in the Global South. He has published co-authored monographs including (with R. Westwood) International and Cross-Cultural Management Studies: A Postcolonial Reading (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) and an edited book (with R. Westwood, F. R. Khan and M. Frenkel), Core–Periphery Relations and Organisation Studies (Palgrave MacMillan, 2014). He is co-editor (with N. Jammulamadaka) of the Springer book series Managing the Post-Colony and (with N. Jammulamadaka, A. Faria and S. Ruggunan, 2021) of a recent special issue of the journal Organization on decolonising management and organisational knowledge.