Climate Justice at the University: Integrating Struggles for Liberation
Universities are not simply places for learning and research but are also centers of power and influence that can shape society. Historically, the Western model of the university was originally designed to serve wealthy and powerful interests. Universities in the US were often built on occupied land, and in Europe, they trained the next generation of elites. Several branches of science produced knowledge to support and legitimize colonization: geographers surveyed territory in the search for natural resources; anthropologists studied colonized cultures; and engineers built railways to transport extractive goods.
But universities have also been and still are sites of insurgency. In the last ten years, student-led movements have pushed for the removal of statues that venerate colonizers and industrialists, starting in Cape Town with Cecil Rhodes. In Denmark, the movement to decolonize manifested itself when a group of anonymous artists from the art academy threw a bust of King Frederik V into the canals as a call for the Danish state to reckon with its role in the transatlantic slave trade. It has not always been obvious how an otherwise seemingly siloed push for climate action could be integrated with these larger struggles for liberation.
The link between justice and climate action became clearer to the broader public on October 7th, 2023. Since the intensification of the genocide in Gaza, the climate change movement has increasingly become entangled with other struggles for liberation that see climate breakdown as a product of capitalism and colonialism. “Everything is so blatant now, and people can see the links more explicitly”, says Stephens.
But with universities being highly enmeshed with corporate money that comes from fossil fuel industries, does it even make sense to have universities? And how exactly do we move from profit-seeking science research that advances weapon technology to liberation?
This article is based on a panel conversation on the state of university institutions in the context of the urgent climate crisis between Fernando Racimo, Associate Professor of Molecular Ecology and Evolution at the University of Copenhagen, and Jennie Stephens, Professor of Climate Justice at the National University of Ireland Maynooth. It is written by CApE writer Semine Long-Callesen and part of an article series published by the Center for Applied Ecological Thinking at the University of Copenhagen with Resilience.org.
Read the full article here: Climate Justice at the University: Integrating Struggles for Liberation.