Learning about climate justice in times of drought and Covid-19

ABSTRACT

Activism and engagement with real-world climate crises, within particular contexts, are prerequisites for learning about climate justice. I draw on my experience as an imbedded activist researcher living and learning through two recent ‘crises’ in Cape Town, to deepen my understandings of ‘climate justice’. I followed a case study approach to investigate learning within two ‘crises’, the 2017/2018 drought and the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020. Cape Town is a significant context within which to explore climate justice as it is a ‘city of islands’ with ‘so much beauty, yet a tremendous amount of violence and suffering’. It is a microcosm of the inequalities and socio-economic injustices in the world. Through the study, ecofeminism is identified as a significant framework for understanding ‘climate justice’ and deep, just transitions towards its attainment. It places at the centre of concern marginalised poor, Indigenous, black, peasant women. Climate justice is about foregrounding those people who have contributed least to climate catastrophes and are most affected by them. As climate justice is about systems change, social movements and social movement learning (SML) are key vehicles towards deep transformation. SML importantly confronts knowledge hierarchies and middle-class biases in crisis responses.

KEYWORDS:

• Climate justice
• ecofeminism
• social movement learning
• social class
• Covid-19
• drought

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

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Shirley Walters

Shirley Walters has been Professor of Adult and Continuing Education and a scholar-activist at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa since 1985. Since July 2014 she is Professor Emerita. She is president of Pascal International Members Association (PIMA) and until 2020 was Vice President (Africa) on International Council for Adult Education (ICAE). She has served on various national committees, including as chair of South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA) from 2004-2010, chair of the multi-stakeholder ‘Learning Cape’, and on the Transformation Oversight Committee for Public Higher Education. She has been active within social justice oriented civil society organisations for over 30 years both locally and globally.