Nineteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

The study of collective memory is often deployed in notable sites of protracted conflict or within those states or regions undergoing a post-conflict transition. However, war is not the only violence which displaces the world or shocks communities into isolationist or populist political trajectories. Through reviewing a selection of the most recent literature to date on just transitions, climate vulnerability (which necessitates the observance of climate migration/displacement), and the development of “climate havens,” I position why the study and methodologies of memory studies have an essential role to play in understanding the social dynamics and identified contradictions of these increasingly germane topics. This argument acutely focuses on regions of the world being dubbed “climate havens” or “climate refuge cities” to draw attention to the myriad definitions of “climate justice” which already exist in these localities and how these interpretations are often left unintegrated to city and state initiatives, as well as to academic definitions of climate vulnerability and environmental justice which often seek technical solutions or conflict-resolution schemes for only one segment of the population. Ultimately, this paper aims to challenge tacit assumptions within climate transition literature of how interpretations and collective memories of global capitalism, industrialization/de-industrialization, forced migration, and settler-colonial infrastructure and policies, actively shape the way communities at sites of present and future mass climate migration interpret and mitigate shared dilemmas related to the climate crisis. Debates such as climate reparations, economic opportunity, de-industrialized landscape, land back claims, and environmental justice communities are discussed.