Farhana Sultana, professor of geography and the environment, has edited and contributed to “Confronting Climate Coloniality: Decolonizing Pathways for Climate Justice” (Routledge, 2024).

The collection examines the intersection of climate crisis and the ongoing legacies and disproportionate impacts of colonialism, capitalism and imperialism. Climate coloniality, as Sultana explains, involves the ways climate change is entangled with both historical and present-day practices of extraction, ecological degradation and uneven international arrangements as well as dominant discourses, narratives and policies that impact the lived experiences of racialized populations in the Global North and entire communities in the Global South, who are often rendered vulnerable or disposable. In the collection, a cross-disciplinary group of scholars from around the world discuss topics such as climate mitigation, adaptation, fossil fuel development, climate governance, resource exploitation, and Indigenous stewardship across a range of contexts to collectively advance strategies and solutions that work toward decolonization and climate justice.

Sultana has co-edited three other books on water politics and social struggles, including “Water Politics: Governance, Justice, and the Right to Water” (Routledge, 2020). She has also written and co-written numerous journal articles and book chapters on topics that range from critical geography, international politics, and environmental governance to pedagogy and scholar-activism. 

Sultana is research co-director of Environmental Conflict and Collaboration at the Program for the Advancement of Research on Conflict and Collaboration and a senior research associate for the South Asia Center. Her work broadly explores water governance, climate and social justice, political ecology, critical development studies, and transnational feminist theories.

From the publisher:

“This timely and urgent collection brings together cutting-edge interdisciplinary scholarship and ideas from around the world to present critical examinations of climate coloniality.

Confronting Climate Coloniality exposes how legacies of colonialism, imperialism, and capitalism co-produce and exacerbate the climate crisis, create disproportionate impacts on those who contributed the least to climate change, and influence global and local responses. Climate coloniality is perpetuated through processes of neoliberalism, racial capitalism, development interventions, economic growth models, media, and education. Confronting climate coloniality entails decolonizing climate discourses and governance, challenging the dominant framings and policies, interrogating material, geopolitical, and institutional arrangements for tackling the climate crisis, and centering Global South and Indigenous knowledge, experiences, strategies, and solutions. Confronting Climate Coloniality: Decolonizing Pathways for Climate Justice provides critical insights and strategies for transformative action and fosters deeper understandings of the structural injustices entangled with climate change in governance, framings, policies, responses, and praxis. This collection offers pioneering interdisciplinary research on alternative frameworks for decolonized approaches for more meaningful climate justice.

With originality, scholarly rigor, and emphasis on amplifying marginalized voices, this collection is an indispensable resource for interdisciplinary scholars, policymakers, and activists committed to advancing climate justice.”