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Unsettling the Anthropos: Reworlding Climate Knowledge for Epistemic Plurality

Unsettling the Anthropos: Reworlding Climate Research for Epistemic Plurality

THURSDAY 28 NOVEMBER 2024, 3pm-8.30pm, University of Warwick & Coventry Cathedral

The context

IGSDLink opens in a new window, PAISLink opens in a new window and the Sustainability SpotlightLink opens in a new window are delighted to host Prof. Harini Nagendra, Director of the School for Climate Change and Sustainability at Azim Premji University, India, along with Justine Marchant, General Director of Soka Gakkai International-UK, and Wren James, Carnegie-longlisted British author and Founder of the Climate Writers League, on November 28th. Join us for an exciting event with these inspiring leaders in sustainability, climate action, and environmental literature.

Event Overview

In a world that urgently demands a rethinking of human-centred narratives, Unsettling the Anthropos invites you to join a reimagined two-part dialogue on climate knowledge production. This series, organised to kick off World Commons Week 2024, and leveraging the visits of Prof. Harini Nagendra and Justine Marchant to Warwick aims to transcend dominant paradigms to call forth epistemic justice through diverse, inclusive voices and practices. Drawing on the work of commons scholars and visionaries like Elinor Ostrom, and Donna Haraway where new ways of knowing emerge and entangled futures are shaped collaboratively, we will aim to imagine alternative futures, as a way to respond to less satisfying realities of the Anthropocene.

By unsettling the entrenched anthropocentric narratives that shape climate governance, this event enacts a collective exploration of plural forms of knowing, resisting systems of oppression, and cultivating possibilities for reparation and renewal.

  • Unsettle and Reimagine: Engage with radical thought leaders and scholars who are committed to challenging and reshaping dominant climate narratives.
  • Connect Across Borders: Participate in conversations that transcend geographical, disciplinary, and species boundaries, with a focus on collaborative, global commons.
  • Collective Healing and Action: Be part of a community of thinkers and doers, working together to not only resist but to envision and create regenerative futures.

Come for the discussions, stay for the transformation. Let's reimagine the role of the human agency, and human-environment relations, and what climate justice and epistemic plurality can be, together.

Event Programme

PART 1 : CLIMATE KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION CAFE - 3:00pm - 4:15pm, Thursday, 28 November 2024, University of Warwick

Climate Knowledge Production Café

Time: 3:00 pm - 4:15 pm
Venue: University of Warwick (IAS Seminar Room)

Join us for the Climate Knowledge Production Café, an immersive and thought-provoking world café session designed to challenge and reimagine the way we produce and share climate knowledge. This event will bring together researchers and thinkers from across the University of Warwick to foster a vibrant, interdisciplinary dialogue.

Guided by Dr Hita Unnikrishnan and Emellyne Forman, this session weaves together multiple ways of knowing, resisting dominant narratives and acknowledging the deep interdependence of human and non-human worlds. Our aim is to explore diverse epistemologies that can shape a more equitable and just approach to climate governance and knowledge production.

Event Highlights:

  • Cafe Session:

Participants will engage in facilitated, in-depth dialogues at thematic tables, where we’ll explore ideas of knowledge production from multiple perspectives, emphasising inclusivity and collaboration in the context of a rapidly changing world. Our thematic discussions will cover:

- Complexity, imaginaries, and more-than-human worlding

- Magic, design, and ritual as knowledge production

- Religion, culture and human-environment relationships

- Artificial intelligence

- Water

- Health

- Commons

Each table will focus on identifying and resisting oppressive systems embedded within climate knowledge production, exploring alternative, epistemically just methodologies to deconstruct these systems, and envisioning transformative, alternative approaches. The session will culminate in a co-authored positioning paper that captures our collective insights and will be submitted to a leading climate change journal.

Come ready to connect, reflect, and contribute to shaping a richer, more inclusive climate discourse. Let’s embrace this opportunity to reimagine the possibilities of climate justice and epistemic diversity—together.

Following the climate knowledge production café, we will attend The Seeds of Hope and Action (SOHA) Exhibition also at Warwick before heading to the Coventry Cathedral for a panel discussion and writing workshop.

PART 2 : PANEL DISCUSSION WITH WORLD LEADING CLIMATE AUTHORS FOLLOWED BY A WRITING WORKSHOP - 6pm - 8:30pm, Thursday, 28 November 2024, Coventry Cathedral

Beyond Doom and Denial: Crafting Climate Narratives of Hope

Date: November 28th 2024

Time: 6pm - 8:30 pm

Venue: Coventry Cathedral (tbc)


Panel discussion


Can narratives of the Anthropocene be hopeful?

Can we imagine futures that are deeply interconnected, more-than-human, and just?

This panel, moderated by Dr Hita Unnikrishnan, IGSD, and Dr. Nicholas Lawrence, Department of English, University of Warwick, delves into uplifting narratives that do not shy away from complexity but embrace the potential for transformation.

Our panellists are:


Writing workshop


What does it mean to envision not just a survivable Anthropocene but one that might build on losses of the past and rise phoenix like into a just future?

Come to this author led creative writing workshop to coproduce a climate narrative that moves beyond doom and denial into more hopeful futures.

Read interview with Prof Harini on her research and novel writing

Read interview with author Wren James on their writing and establishing the Climate Fiction Writers League