Anti-Racism and Climate Change: responding to the problem is part of the problem
By Loes Damhof, UNESCO Chair on Futures Literacy in Higher Education, Hanze University of Applied Sciences
Why is anti-racism important in the field of Futures Studies and Foresight?
This question, as proposed by colleagues Marianna Birmoser Ferreira-Aulu and Nicolas Balcom Raleigh in their insightful post Reflections on anti-racist futuring for climate action, seems redundant. Isn’t anti-racism important everywhere? But when we take a closer look at the practice of futures thinking, there might be an opportunity and even a responsibility for futurists to go beyond our duties as citizens. Futures Literacy experts, like myself, are in the business of imagining and diversifying futures so we can look at the world anew. By expanding the way we see and use the future, we do not only open ourselves up for emergence and spontaneity, but we are also able to deconstruct existing narratives and decolonize futures. This is important, since our images of the future influence our thinking and behaviour in the present. But it is not only our futures that need decolonizing, it is our behaviour in the present and the systems we work in too.
This includes our work within the FLxDeep project: besides guiding EIT-ClimateKIC staff in implementing futures literacy in Deep Demonstrations, we need to make the work on climate change more futures literate as well.
The fight against climate change is interwoven with the fight for social justice. We cannot talk about climate change, or any transformation for that matter, without talking about racial justice. This means that we, white people in particular, need to do the work. This, and I speak for myself since I just fully embarked on this journey, is a lot of work. It goes beyond reading books and educating yourself, watching the news, marching for BLM or being outraged by injustices far away. It involves deep self-reflection and often dealing with trauma. It includes conversations and dialogues, ‘yarning’ with all voices. But it most definitely includes pro-actively decolonizing futures and narratives.
So what does this mean?
There is a Nigerian proverb that says: Unless the lion learns how to speak, the hunting story will always glorify the hunter. As a response to make this just, we tend to teach the proverbial lion how to speak. But decolonizing is not about teaching the other your capability, it is about deconstructing and revisiting the story altogether. As how I have come to understand it, tackling the psychological construct of whiteness is not about including other voices, it is about co-creating a new sense of belonging. By watching John C. Powell, as suggested by my dear friend Raul Smith, I realised that inclusion is not the opposite of exclusion. It is not an answer to the practice of ‘othering’. How sympathetic as it may be intended, ‘inclusion’ implies two sides, that one voice will simply be invited to join the other. Inclusion implies othering. How can this ever be an even playing field? The same goes for ‘participatory futures’: processes that engage the public in imagining futures. This too, implies a process that continues to happen whether we include that other perspective or not. Being invited ‘to the table’ can invoke the sense of not being taken seriously, that it is merely for optics. Think about it: who designed the table as the best tool for meetings and conversations? Who decided that it needs to be a table anyway? Why not sit under tree, or on a rock? As long as we do not co-create these processes, the conversation in itself runs the risk of being colonised as well.
As futures literacy experts we work with an incredibly powerful capability that allows people to deconstruct and question those narratives and makes space to truly co-create new ones. In order to do so, we must go beyond the idea of inviting voices to the construct or system we currently work in, since these systems are racist in themselves. We could argue the same for our approach towards climate change. Yes, climate change is racist, as argued by my colleagues, but isn’t our battle against it as well?
Who are WE, European and American researchers to decide what is the best way to respond to anything? To impose this on others, who might have different priorities altogether? And are we at the end, not protecting a white way of life? (With ‘white’ I don’t mean the color of our skin, but this idea of purity, the idea of a best system, a best way to live…). Or, to paraphrase my friend Bayo Akomolafe:
When does our response to a problem, becomes part of the problem?
I don’t have the answers, only questions:
* to what extent are we colonising futures with a Western push for climate adaptation? If it is a cause we believe is just, does that make it okay?
* How do we create spaces for belonging, not inclusion? Do we invite, or do we truly co-create?
* What does it mean to become anti-racist? Is seeing nature as a pure, pristine place we need to go back to, not racist as well?
* And if climate change is racist, can we make it less so even if the approach is not? How do we win the battle if we are fighting ourselves?
In the effort to make the work on climate change more futures literate, we have to focus on making it anti-racist as well. And we have to start now.
