Project description
Listening to Pacific Islanders experiences of environmental change
In the Pacific Islands, the impacts of climate change such as rising seas and increasing disasters are worsening the existing environmental impacts of resource extraction such as mining and overfishing, and the legacies of nuclear testing. These combined impacts are severely threatening Pacific Islanders homes and livelihoods. The EU-funded CoL project will amplify the everyday experiences of Pacific Islanders living through these changes. Specifically, it will focus on testimonies, poetry, sounds and stories since these are popular mediums across Pacific cultures to connect to, share and communicate knowledge and experiences of the world. The project will develop an interdisciplinary ‘sonic geography’ to better understand the holistic and dynamic ways that environmental crisis is conceived and addressed.
Objective
"Climates of Listening: Amplifying Pacific Experiences of Environmental Crisis (CoL) is the first practice-led research project to use sound and listening as a framework for expanding understandings of Indigenous Pacific human-environmental relations in the face of rapid ecosystemic transformation. Sonic practices such as storytelling, poetry, singing, music and listening are widely used in Pacific cultures to connect to, make sense of, and communicate knowledge about, the world. Drawing on these practices, this project innovates an interdisciplinary ""sonic geography"" to help scholars and advocates better conceive of the holistic, multifarious and hyperlocalised ways that environmental crisis is felt and attended to. In doing so, it expands existing literature beyond narratives of ""vulnerability"" and ""resilience"", and problematises the politics of representation and translation of Indigenous Pacific experiences into Western ideas and knowledges.
CoL deploys ethnographic material from five frontline Pacific Island sites as a foundation for understanding and communicating Pacific Indigenous-environmental relations through written and artistic forms, including a research monograph, workshops, original sound art pieces and a research exhibition. Based at the world leading Centre for the GeoHumanities (RHUL) in the Department of Geography, the Fellow will be supported in a rich research environment. The Fellow's time at the CGH will not only enhance their trajectory as a research leader in their discipline of Geography, but will also advance their transferable research skills and build their Geography teaching profile. Through a comprehensive suite of research, dissemination and career training activities, this MSCA will greatly increase the Fellow's capacity to secure a permanent academic post in the UK or Europe."
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Funding Scheme
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)Coordinator
TW20 0EX Egham
United Kingdom