Climate Grief, Expert Evidence and Academic Practice

Abstract

There is a pressing need for changing what is understood as academic or expert evidence so as to ensure that the academy is better equipped to respond to climate change and other global environmental crises. It is critical that any new understandings are developed with the leadership of Indigenous peoples. In this article, we present three essays on climate grief, knowledge politics, and creating institutional change to centre Indigenous leadership. Through these essays, we argue for academic evidence that recognises values as well as facts, and is able to appreciate and navigate our co-constituted socionatural realities, including by respecting the voices and knowledges of all beings, human and non-human. Motivated by the 2019-20 summer of bushfires in Australia and the global pandemic that shut down our campuses in autumn, we call for more collaborative research that tackles the constraints of disciplinary traditions. We also present three emergent principles and practices in support of this work: centreing Country, building like-minded communities of scholars, and ensuring that intent is followed through with material change.