CLIMATE CHANGE IN PASIFIKA RELATIONAL PERSPECTIVES

This volume posits that relational perspectives from Pasifika communities hold the key to the climate crisis. Recognising that the climate crisis is a global multifaceted issue, the Pasifika communities offer a relational perspective that is liberative and life-affirming. A perspective that recognises the sacred knowledge and wisdom of Pasifika communities and forebears often sidelined by the mainstream climate discourse. While science, technology, and evidence-based policy remain critical, they cannot stand alone. Climate science therefore cannot stand alone.Climate science therefore cannot stand alone. It needs to listen and incorporate the relational and communities-based perspectives of those mostly impacted by the climate crisis. This relational approach provides the ingredients and guide to produce quality research and solutions that are effective rather than reactive, relational rather than transactional, spiritual rather than just technical, and grounded in long-term responsibility and care, guided by Pasifika custodianship wisdom. This volume offers a distinctly philosophical, ethical, and forward-looking perspective to frame a ‘whole of life’ response to the climate crisis that looks beyond one-dimensional and purely technical policy framings. It portrays Pasifika not as a vulnerable region, but rather a region of solutions, leadership, and innovation grounded on the agency of their philosophies, ethics, and spiritualities developed and tested for centuries by their forebears to respond to intergenerational crises such as climate change.