Critical approaches to development, justice and participation in a time of crises

Presenting author: Vanessa Lamb (University of Melbourne)

Young people play key roles in Southeast Asia's democracy and environmental justice movements. Thailand's move to democratic rule in 1973-1976 was predicated on the "unforgettable" work of student activists (Thongchai 2020). Similarly, student activists in Myanmar(Burma) known as the "88 generation" were and are key political organisers.

Both earlier student-led movements saw states respond with violence; students fled capital cities and continued activism in rural or ethnic or border areas that are now core aspects of countries' and the region's interconnected environmental movements (Jakkrit 2021). Today, young people remain a strong force in the region. Yet, we rarely see histories of activism, politics or democracy framed with young people at the centre. This is a missed opportunity to understand the links to current trends of authoritarian populism and potential for democratic change in the region. A reframing that centre youth-led movements has the potential to advance understandings of participation, justice, and solidarity in areas of environment and development.

The presentation will draw on critical review of existing literature and primary research focused on a multi-generational analysis of activism, relying on personal histories and personal experience working for and with activists in the region. 

References

Jakkrit Sangkhamanee. 2021. 'Wither the Environment? The Recent Student-led Protests and (absent) Environmental Politics in Thailand', Kyoto Review of Southeast Asia 30.

Thongchai Winichakul. 2020. Moments of Silence: The Unforgetting of the October 6, 1976, Massacre in Bangkok. University of Hawaii Press.

Presenting author: Andrew McGregor (Macquarie University)

Other author: Fiona Miller (Macquarie University)

In this paper we focus on the mobility, transformability, combustibility, and agency of carbon atoms as they flow across and beyond Southeast Asian land and seascapes and accumulate within particular underground, surface and atmospheric ecologies. The presence and form of molecules containing carbon attract and enable different resource economies and associated forms of place-based violence.  Our aim in this chapter is twofold. 

We show how the sites of violence are connected though the movement of molecules above, across and below ground, which, in turn, are shaped by broader more-than-human policies, practices and processes.  Second, we aim to make the connections between acute sites of violence and more distant and diffuse forms of slow violence across the region more visible. 

We achieve this by adopting a world regional political ecology lens informed by concepts of dispossession and accumulation. By focusing in on the journey of an imaginary carbon atom from below the Timor Sea to Australia, through bovine bodies, into the atmosphere and down into Indonesian forests and soils we highlight associated material processes of dispossession and accumulation. By taking a world regional approach we seek to identify alternative sites and strategies for pursuing justice and hope in Southeast Asia.

Presenting author: Kiran Maharjan (University of Sydney)

This paper investigates how the notion of sustainable development fails when asymmetrical power relationships come in play in multi-scalar transboundary river governance. With a case study of several local riverine communities living in Nepal's Koshi River catchment, this paper demonstrates that the sustainable development is only a slogan in national and international policy papers. The local communities experience water scarcity at times of need and repeatedly suffer flooding during monsoons. Major stakeholders in the governance, the governments of Nepal and India, have consistently failed to solve the issue of compensation for the communities' loss of land and property due to erosion, inundation and siltation, thus creating injustice.

Yet, the stakeholders ignore the voices of the communities, rendering the notion of just and inclusive participation of the communities in the decision-making for sustainable development a lie. The paper argues that there is a need for a space of recognition and acceptance for communities by the major stakeholders, where they could feel as insiders, despite the major roles being played by other wider forces. 

Presenting author: Souvik Chakraborty (Monash University)

The anti-mining social movement in Niyamgiri is led by the tribal people of the Dongria Kondh community in the eastern state of Odisha, India. This anti-mining movement has lasted over 18 years and has often caught national and international attention. In 2013, the movement was dubbed successful, following a favourable decision from the Supreme Court of India. Yet the movement continues, particularly to address the demands of the Dongria Kondh people.

Building on social movement literature on framing and geographical literature on spatial strategies of social movements, I will focus on how the movement activists have framed the movement recently and the impact it has created. I will analyse how various understandings of development by several actors in the movement have impacted the movement framing and its resonance. I explore how ongoing contestation and contentious politics over natural resource extraction impacts the lives of the affected communities. My broader objective is to understand how the Dongria Kondh community imagines their future and how their relational ontologies influence the anti-mining movement and its effectiveness in protecting the pluriverse of the Dongria Kondhs. 

Presenting author: Trivess Moore (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology)

In Australia, the legal structure and governance of strata developments has presented challenges for impacted households and Owners Corporations (Bodies Corporate in some states), as they seek to address the flammable cladding crisis. There has been a lack of clarity around processes and what rights owners, occupiers and Owners Corporations themselves, have in dealing with this matter. In turn, this has led to an ad-hoc and scattered response to the flammable cladding issue for owners, occupiers, owners corporations, from state and local government: land use planning; building; insurance; strata law etc.

Taken from a socio-legal lens, this paper explores the cladding crisis from the perspective of 16 affected Australian Owners Corporations who had considered legal action, sought legal advice or had engaged lawyers to try and pursue those responsible. There has been little recourse to date. Knowledge from the experiences of those impacted will assist law and governance to more equitably understand the lived experiences of this crisis, and, in turn, offer lessons for comparable jurisdictions on flammable cladding and other building defect issues, which continues to plague strata/condominium developments across the globe.

Presenting author: Cuz Potter (Korea University)

Other author: Danielle Labbé (University of Montreal)

Large-scale residential developments on expropriated lands in periurban Hanoi resemble forms of gentrification seen elsewhere. But is it gentrification? Current debate over the definition of gentrification has focused on whether the term has become too broad to be useful in different institutional and spatiotemporal contexts. While some push for a generalisable definition based in capitalist development, others argue that the term harbors Western assumptions that fail to usefully explain unique local circumstances.

The paper first identifies one such conceptual assumption that must be made explicit since it provides the term's politicizing thrust: displacement generates an experience of social injustice. Then, drawing on surveys and interviews with residents as well as interviews with real estate agents, government officials, and academics conducted in Hanoi between 2013 and 2017, the paper evaluates five types of displacement on the city's outskirts. Because displacement only occurs in marginal cases and generates limited feelings of social injustice, the term "gentrification" is of little use. Instead, the paper suggests that in a context of rapid urbanization and relatively inclusive economic growth like that of Hanoi the terms "livelihood dispossession" and "value grabbing" may better capture the experience of social injustice and are therefore more likely to generate political traction.

Presenting author: Omar Elkharouf (University of Sydney)

Within Australian food systems scholarship, the notion of food justice is yet to be brought into dialogue relative to the productionist narratives of food security. The analysis of food inequities within the Australian context continues to be curtailed by lack of routine measurement and variability in research focus and measures. Relatedly, there remains little research and policy praxis on how to address food system inequities beyond the charity approach. And problematically, this logic leaves policy and research praxis unable to address how the intersectional diversities within vulnerable groups are embodied in their varied everyday experiences of food.

Through semi-structured interviews and supplementary participant observation with members from the Queer Middle Eastern community in Sydney, this paper examines the potential that a foodscape approach through a food justice lens can recast the discourse around context-dependent manifestations of food inequities in Australia in two ways. First, it can render visible the unjust foodscapes experienced by underrepresented marginalized communities. Second, through a spatial approach to food systems, we can better understand the geographies of survival and resilience strategies such communities enact to navigate their unjust foodscapes and maintain a sense of place in the city.

Presenting author: Krishna K Shrestha (UNSW)

Justice in the context of disasters is important but under-theorised.  Many theories of justice highlight that the ideas of redistribution of goods, rights and resources are important, but a growing body of scholarship exists to counter that justice cannot only be about the proper distribution of a predefined set of rights and goods.  The decisions about the value of these goods, rights and liberties are defined by dominant interests, power relations, value structures and cultures of society.  Scholars such as Nancy Fraser argue that issues such as inequality, exclusion, representation, marginalisation and scales define and perpetuate injustices, and that these must be called into question to give voice to claims for "recognition". 

This paper investigates the practice of disaster recovery in Nepal and analyses 'redistribution' aspects of disaster recovery, and explains possibilities and limits of 'redistribution', thereby highlighting challenges and opportunities for 'recognition'.  The paper concludes by highlighting that disasters necessitate a consideration of justice as recognition first and foremost to advance disaster justice in theory and practice.

Presenting author: Joyce Wu (UNSW)

The water-energy-food nexus is an analytical and policy framework that views the three resources and their interactions from a security perspective. Subsequent articulations of the nexus have ranged from a livelihoods perspective, to environmental and social impacts, to critiques of the nexus as yet another buzzword. From a feminist perspective, the water-energy-food nexus framework is an attempt to provide a macro analysis of the inter-relationships and dynamics between water, energy and food from a preoccupation of biophysical science and resource management. In doing so, power relations and inequalities - especially the voices and experiences of women and marginalised groups - are obscured. Given that the nexus is about the relations between water-energy-food and how these relationships affect biophysical and human outcomes, a gender analysis of the nexus is critical in helping us to understand how marginalised groups are disproportionately affected. 

In this presentation, a case study of Manchar Lake contamination in Sindh province, Pakistan, will be used to explore the gender dimensions and politics of nexus interactions, and call for a strengthening of interdisciplinary analysis which places gender justice and sustainable development at the heart of water resource management.

Presenting author: Sandra Jazmin Barragan Contreras (University of Sheffield)

There is a clear need for improving the fairness and sustainability in the implementation of renewable energy projects. Assessing energy justice in contexts with high levels of marginalization, and a post-colonial heritage (of historical domination), requires taking into account the local, cultural and historical implicit understandings of justice. Current literature, however, has been mostly developed under the evidence and concepts of Global North contexts, which tend to build in universalist ideas of justice, often inappropriate for policy application in the Global South. To contribute to closing this gap, the paper qualitatively analyses the implementation of a large-scale photovoltaic project in Yucatan, Mexico, examining how indigenous communities surrounding the project perceive, experience and react to procedural justice issues in the project's implementation.

Results show that concepts such as consent, participation and inclusion as currently applied in the siting of renewable infrastructure, are now mostly perceived as a way to legitimize the imposition of projects which align with developer and governmental priorities. Thus, emphasising self-determination over and above the aforementioned concepts is now widely seen as necessary among affected communities for achieving a more socially just energy transition.

Presenting author: Ayusha Bajracharya (UNSW)

Other authors: Krishna K. Shrestha (UNSW), Anthony B Zwi (UNSW), Eileen Baldry (UNSW)

Indigenous peoples, especially Indigenous women, are disproportionately vulnerable to, and affected by, disasters.  Despite this, public responses to disasters often marginalise Indigenous peoples. Furthermore, little research and analysis of how Indigenous women experience disasters, how they respond to the impacts, and how they contribute to post-disaster reconstruction and development, has been undertaken. Learning 'with' Indigenous women from the Global South and their everyday experiences and responses to disasters have rarely been the focus of analysis. This paper shares a preliminary framework to examine whether, how and why Indigenous women find themselves marginalised in disaster response practices, drawing on a case study from a Guthi system (Indigenous Newari Institution) in Nepal's Kathmandu Valley. 

Drawing on literature and initial fieldwork in two Indigenous Newar Guthis in Nepal's Kathmandu Valley, this paper contributes three main insights, viz. i) Indigenous women have their own ways of responding to disasters, informed by their knowledge and culture; ii) Indigenous women see the 'physical' reconstruction of houses and infrastructure as secondary to addressing 'fear' and 'uncertainty' in a time of crisis, and iii) Indigenous culture and festivals play a major role in enhancing community resilience and addressing widespread community fears and anxieties.  These community-based responses and initiatives are little understood or incorporated into government, development partner or civil society responses to disasters; they are also rarely (if at all) recognised or valued by non-Indigenous women. The paper concludes by highlighting the need for reframing 'gendered disasters and 'reconstruction' narratives by extending the analysis beyond 'physical' to socio-cultural elements of rebuilding and resilience in all communities, notably in relation to Indigenous women.

Presenting author: Katherine Gibson (Western Sydney University)

Other authors: Bhavya Chitranshi (Western Sydney University), Anisah Madden, (Western Sydney University)

This session brings an historical perspective on the rise of food security as a concern and its subsequent institutionalisation in development practice together with analysis of contemporary struggles to wrest food production from the hold of technocratic agendas that privilege agri-businesses. The three papers will be bring a 'reading for difference' to their examination of development debates of the 1950s, peasant and Indigenous  struggles to reclaim food futures via the UN Committee on World Food Security, and current movements and alternative community practices in India that are seeking to shape food futures. 

Paper 1: Decolonising food security in India: Reimagining agriculture through farmer's protests and indigenous women's collective farming practices.

Bhavya Chitranshi 

Paper 2: The Geographer's Burden-feeding India's starving millions: Oskar Spate's misgivings 

Katherine Gibson 

Paper 3: Remembering the culture in agriculture: Reclaiming food futures via the UN Committee on World Food Security

Anisah Madden

Presenting author: Karen Paiva Henrique (University of Western Australia)

Cities are at the forefront of climate change adaptation, however, to date, state-led efforts have largely failed to address its uneven outcomes. Ample evidence demonstrates the inadequacy of top-down adaptation projects, detailing their often unjust, unsustainable, and perverse effects for marginalised groups. There is a growing consensus that sustainable and just adaptation requires the active involvement of those directly affected by climate-induced hazards. Yet, on the ground, community involvement in adaptation planning and policy remains contentious and contested and is continuously re-articulated in the negotiation of authority.

In this paper, I focus on the city of São Paulo, Brazil, to examine how different actors approach participation and discuss how the involvement of informal floodplain dwellers in formal adaptation projects is hindered by a shared feeling of mistrust.Drawing on archival research and interviews with community leaders and state-appointed experts, I demonstrate how institutionalised flood management practices, the historical stigmatisation of informal communities, and local practices of survival and contestation intersect to inhibit genuine state-community engagement. I argue that efforts to redefine state-community relations must take mistrust seriously and discuss how everyday negotiations provide entry points to rebuild trust based on mutual respect and recognition as foundations for climate justice.

Presenting author: Kiran Maharjan (University of Sydney)

This paper investigates how the notion of sustainable development fails when asymmetrical power relationships come in play in multi-scalar transboundary river governance. With a case study of several local riverine communities living in Nepal's Koshi River catchment, this paper demonstrates that the sustainable development is only a slogan in national and international policy papers.

The local communities experience water scarcity at times of need and repeatedly suffer flooding during monsoons. Major stakeholders in the governance, the governments of Nepal and India, have consistently failed to solve the issue of compensation for the communities' loss of land and property due to erosion, inundation and siltation, thus creating injustice. Yet, the stakeholders ignore the voices of the communities, rendering the notion of just and inclusive participation of the communities in the decision-making for sustainable development a lie.

The paper argues that there is a need for a space of recognition and acceptance for communities by the major stakeholders, where they could feel as insiders, despite the major roles being played by other wider forces. 

Presenting author: Shanil Samarakooon (UNSW)

Other author: Paul Munro (UNSW), Matthew Kearnes (UNSW)

Over the last decade, the proliferation of off-grid solar systems has constituted a critical dimension of the electrification of the Global South. Supported by private and philanthropic investment, and as a response to the continuing instabilities in centralised grid systems, millions of off-grid solar products have been sold over the past five years, with the majority of sales in the East African region. Problematically, however, most of these small-scale solar products usually only have an expected shelf-life of 3-4 years. Thus, the expected increase in the disposal of off-grid solar e-waste in Africa is potentially the dark side of a promising innovation.

In this presentation, drawing on research conducted in 2020 and drawing on the field of "repair studies", we critically examine this emerging geography of solar waste in the Global South with a case study focus on Malawi. While the Malawian state is placing deep reliance on the off-grid solar market to address the energy needs of millions of Malawian households, it has neither the policy settings nor the infrastructure (public or private) to effectively govern mounting volumes of associated solar e-waste. In the face of this challenge, we show how local and informal repair technicians are appearing as an integral form of social infrastructure that extend the lifespan of solar objects.

Presenting author: Katherine Gibson (Western Sydney University)

Other authors: Isaac Lyne (Western Sydney University), Vickie Zhang, (University of Melbourne), Lisa Palmer, (University of Melbourne)

The Bamboo Bridge is a 60-minute film that documents the last building of a 1.5 kilometre bridge across the Mekong River in Cambodia. It is a meditation on ephemeral infrastructure, on human-non-human interactions, on community economy relationships and resilience. It presents a way of living that is under threat as the Belt and Road agenda reshapes all corners of Indo-China. It asks what can we learn from a bamboo bridge?

Following a film showing, the session will include a panel of speakers who will discuss how documentary making and research practice can coalesce.

Presenting author: Isaac Lyne (Western Sydney University)

The "human right to water" was ratified by the United Nations member states in 2010 but there has been consternation ever since about how it is going to be achieved, arguably further exacerbated by countries' commitments to the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 6.1, calling for "[u]niversal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all" by the year 2030, which is also ambivalent about the means. In Cambodia, a bottom of the pyramid business approach has been adapted into policy as a means to achieve SDG 6.1 five years early by 2025. This paper is about a not-for-profit business delivering 'bottled water as a service' to nearly 250,000 Cambodian households from a nation-wide network of franchised kiosks. It is supported by international development aid and corporate philanthropy and is central to the Cambodian Government's strategy.

Drawing on fieldwork in eastern Cambodia I provide a three-stage presentation: firstly, drinking water service processes are analysed through "commoning protocols" and the general consensus in critical scholarship that bottled water is detrimental to the human right to water is brought into question; secondly, temporal concerns related to 'enterprising non-profit organisations' are examined in a context where authoritarian politics is normalised; thirdly the material culture is considered in relation to the effects of the 20Litre bottle devices on water discourse and practices. 

Presenting author: Jennifer Carter (University of the Sunshine Coast)

Other authors: Stephen Hazelman (Secretariat of the Pacific Communities), Christine King (consultant), Sarah Wheeler (University of Adelaide), Chris Jacobson (consultant)

The global organic food market has grown over recent years, and there is potential for produce to attract higher premiums despite higher labour needs, additional costs of certification, and the costs for transition to organic methods.  The Pacific region has little of the global market share despite containing half of the world's organic farmland, and the poorest farmers necessarily being organic by default.  Pacific organic farmers can have their produce certified by IFOAM (the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements) according to the Pacific Organic Standard, under the trademark Organic Pasifika.  This is delivered through PGS (Participatory Guarantee Scheme) peer audits which is relatively inexpensive and suits small-scale farmers.  Scaling up to global (export) production, however, meets with a persistent obstacle in that it requires third-party certification of produce to a fixed standard or recognised equivalent.  Extension of knowledge for both farming and marketing is recognised as another key obstacle to global production in the Pacific region but these historically successful services have been withdrawn in many countries, or, as is the case in many Pacific nations, effort is divest in conventional agriculture.  Public-private-producer partnerships are touted as the way of the future for both organic agriculture and extension services. 

Our research based on case studies and online stakeholder workshops reports that newer translocal actor-networks need to be imagined where multiple partners know their 'place' in the value chain, who is delivering what, and how best to target their extension to the particular farm and value-chain.  To overcome persistent structural inequalities at a global scale, strong governance is needed to coordinate such translocal networks across the geography of different Pacific countries, and their varying regulatory regimes and cropping/environmental characteristics, as POETCom (The Pacific Islands Organic and Ethical Trade Community) implements PGSs around the region ensuring environmental sustainability and social inclusion.

Presenting author: Neil Argent (University of New England)

Other authors: Sean Markey (Simon Fraser University), Greg Halseth (University of Northern British Columbia), Laura Ryser (University of Northern British Columbia), Fiona Haslam-McKenzie (University of Western Australia)

This paper is concerned with the socio-spatial and ethical politics of redistribution, specifically the allocation of natural resources rents from political and economic cores to the economic and geographical peripheries whence the resource originated. Based on a case study of the coal seam gas sector in Queensland's Surat Basin, this paper focuses on the Queensland State Government's regional development fund for mining and energy extraction-affected regions. Employing an environmental justice framework, we explore the operation of these funds in helping communities become resilient to the "staples trap".

Drawing on primary and secondary data gathered on and in the region from mid-2018 to early 2019, we critique how funds were distributed across the local government areas, noting that the participation of smaller, more remote towns and local Indigenous communities was hampered by their structural marginalisation. Procedurally, the funds were criticised for the lack of local consultation during the development and approval phases. We argue that grant application processes should be transparent and inclusive, the outcomes cognisant of the developmental needs of smaller communities, while balancing the need to foster regional solidarity and coherence.

Presenting author: Zali Fung (University of Melbourne)

Geographic research has examined the uneven socioenvironmental impacts of large hydropower dams in Southeast Asia. Yet there is limited critical geographic research on the uneven development of large-scale water diversion projects (Rogers et al. 2019). My research examines the uneven development of the Nam Yuam Water Diversion Project (NYWDP), located in the Salween River Basin in Northeast Thailand near the Thai-Myanmar border, regarding its impacts and participation in project development. The NYWDP is being proposed in the context of multiple crises including Thailand's military government, the covid-19 pandemic and numerous environmental 'crises', which are shaping the nature of development and participation. My research draws on a review of academic and grey literature and media sources, and preliminary online interviews with activists and NGO employees, prompting a reflection upon how we conduct geographic research during a pandemic.

This research seeks to understand who is excluded from participating in formal project development, such as those lacking Thai citizenship, and how they engage with and contest the project, including through resistance. I engage with key debates about what constitutes resistance and intentionality, and develop a conceptual framing to analyse diverse strategies of resistance practiced by communities and activists to contest the NYWDP. This addresses a key literature gap on forms of resistance in authoritarian environments, which may not be overt and organised (Malseed 2008). My research will generate new insights into participation and state-society relations in Thailand.

Presenting author: Fiona Miller (Macquarie University)

Loss has long been a feature of the uneven geographies of development. The 'slow violence' of development (Nixon 2011) has historically been shaped by colonialism and is maintained by the global circuitry of capitalism. Climate change is the latest manifestation of this slow violence, contributing to a deepening and an acceleration of displacement, dispossession and accumulation.

This paper considers the emerging geographies of loss associated with climate change, seeking to draw connections across time and space between sites of production of harm and the diverse lived experiences of loss. Diminishment, absence, surprise, substitution and grief accompany loss, reflecting the ways people's relations with places, each other and non-humans are being reconfigured.

Beyond documenting people's experiences of loss, the paper argues that to trace the geographies of loss attention must also be paid to the ongoing relations and processes that contribute to this harm. Towards this, the paper considers: How are connections between sites of production of fossil fuels and sites of harm conceptualised and represented? By tracing these connections, how can we re-imagine these pathways as part of a politics of climate justice?

Presenting author: Duvan Lopez (Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya)

The city of Bogota has been more than 20 years planning and executing relocation of families to empty certain areas where there is a declared condition of 'non-mitigable' landslide risk" (Fraser, 2016; Zeiderman, 2016). "Mitigability" is defined, for this case, as a conceptual hinge that combines objective technical assessments and subjective political decision-making to resolve if a human settlement must better be dismantled to reduce risk (Ramírez & Rubiano). The convenience of adjustments in the logic and procedures involved in relocations is supported by documenting the precarious results of institutional efforts, the strong affectation caused to inhabitants and areas subjected to this measure, and the ongoing accelerated dynamics of informal re-occupation in the city.

It is postulated that relocation fails, as conceived, to assume non-mitigable risk as a condition attached to space, that can be nullified by the managed retreat of exposed elements (Ramirez, 2011). The persistence of risk dynamics in post-relocation areas is documented among other factors to support it. In contrast, the risk would be presented itself as resulting from deficiencies in the social co-production (Fraser, 2017), opening opportunities to transform it with inclusive processes of planning, design, governance, and appropriation of technologies, where resilience could result as an emerging quality.

The attribution of non-mitigable risk and the consequent relocation are presented as vertical, exclusive, ideological, inefficient, and problematic operations, raising questions about justice. It is argued that mitigability decision-making must include political demands from dwellers affected by relocation (López et. al, 2016), instead of mere strategic and operational criteria from public administrations. Making rights and justice the object of resilience (Ziervogel et al., 2017) may result in diminishing relocation, tipping the balance in favor of transformational approaches to urban landscapes, preserving population by stewardship of environmental, social, and technological variables producing or reducing risks. Contemporary resilience approaches for cities in the global South support that adjustments in this sense are necessary and convenient (Eriksen et. al, 2015; Ziervogel et al., 2017; Wijsman & Feagan, 2019). The use of risk-related relocation promoted through adaptation and resilience discourses must divert to become informed by struggles around exclusion, environmental justice, and the social construction of urban space (Meerow & Newell, 2016; Walsh-Dilley, Wolford & McCarthy, 2016).

Presenting author: William Young (University of Newcastle)

The South Pacific is an important area of biodiversity for marine and terrestrial fauna and flora. Pacific island communities depend on this biodiversity for subsistence, livelihoods and everyday cultural practice. These important human-environment relationships are threatened by invasive species. Current invasive species management in the Pacific leans strongly towards scientific methodologies and techniques which have provided technical insights and solutions for combatting problematic invasive alien species. However, limited attention in research and practice has been paid towards understanding the social aspects of invasive species and their management.

In this paper, I provide preliminary understandings of the human-invasive species relationship and discuss proposed methodologies for my doctoral research in Samoa. Understanding and navigating the cultural and social contexts and complexities of Indigenous peoples' relationships to the environment and invasive species is crucial for strengthening community engagement, longevity and sustainability.  This project is focused on the diverse perceptions, attitudes, and values of invasive species and their management and aims to strengthen invasive species management in the Pacific by providing insights into the human-invasive species relationship and develop 'toolkit' protocols for gender and social inclusion that will lead to more effective management of invasive species and thus, to more climate resilient communities.   

Key words: Pacific, human-environment relationships, Invasive species management, Indigenous peoples.