Description
I argue that there are interlinks between climate crisis, climate injustice and colonialism that induce variant vulnerabilities and colonial hierarchies created by centuries of global politics and its ecological ramifications, compounded by more recent histories of plundering and use of the natural resources by the global North and fossil fuel corporations in Africa. Based on this, the study aims to explore the notion of climate coloniality and how it unfolds in the African context by examining the indigenous communities’ perceptions about climate change, its impacts and possible mitigation and adaptation ways as rooted in the indigenous knowledge. I will focus on the Amazigh indigenous communities in three North African countries namely Algeria, Libya and Morocco. These communities are chosen for the purpose of this study as they share similar grievances; they are poor, bear the brunt of climate change and natural disasters, were displaced sue to large scale climate action projects such as solar panels, have high levels of income inequality and gender disparities and suffer from harsh living conditions. In order to elicit indigenous communities’ perceptions, semi-structed interviews and focus groups discussions will be conducted with representatives of the Amazigh communities in the three countries. The study’s emphasis on the epistemology and lived experiences of climate change by the indigenous communities in North Africa – is significant to learn how nature-culture are organically linked in the struggles of these communities coping with and recovering from climate disasters. Further, higlighting indigenous perceptions of climate change impacts and possible solutions invokes a set of discourses on the question of fossil fuel based economic development, the quest of environmental justice and generic elements of the epistemology of the South for indigenous and environmental rights.
Key words: climate change, North Africa, indigenous community, epistemology of the South, climate coloniality
