okay, good morning. Everyone. We will start formally this session. We were waiting for one presenter. So welcome to the panel on Climate Urbanism, and the Sabal turn
and welcome to the Conference. the Isaac or Congress of Sociology. Let's start with the acknowledgment of country, especially for those of you who don't live here in Australia. This might be something new. So, on behalf of everyone gathered here I pay respect to the spirit of country here in arm, the name for Melbourne in aboriginal language, where we are meeting.
How many of us also pay our respects to. the lands where we live now! Some of us live in Brisbane who is managing land for Yoga people, so I acknowledged the past and present colon nation, Guru deji whoa gurong as the sovereign people here the cultural knowledge holders who maintain and promote the non. Our original law.
Yeah.
sorry they land. aboriginally low customs and custodian ships, responsibilities for country and the people. That country continues to sustain generation after generation into the future. For all of us.
I recognize the important contributions that first nations, thinkers have made to sociology, including challenges to our dominant waste of thinking.
We thank all first nations, peoples, delegates in the room today, and the contributions to knowledge in the discipline. So thank you very much.
So we have.
I really want to.
So we have 3 presentations today. We will have plenty of time for questions. The first presenter basso was not here, maybe because the person is remotely
presenting, and the presentation is here, so the person might be coming late, and we might have the option to ask the person if
they want to present. But let's start with the second presentation, if that's okay. So I was in Boshot. She's talking about urban adaptations from elsewhere proposed in a dialogue between climate urbanism suburban politics and pacific urban experiences.
Thank you.
That's not it.
North.
All right.
So thank you. Everyone. My name is Augustan Boscho. I'm a Phd. Candidate at the University of Queensland.
and I'll be today talking today about urban other patients from elsewhere proposing a dialogue between climate urbanism about in politics and pacific urban experiences which is a a presentation based on my background research and Literature review for my Phd.
And which will be a bit more of a theoretical piece. Then
I would like to first acknowledge the traditional owners of this land and recognize their contributions to Australian and global society.
And, I would like to start by saying that there is a deep and long-standing link between critical urban theory and the environment of cities highly visible in urban political ecology, for example.
But more recently, climate change and climate action have furthered this trend by being enrolled in urban studies.
including from critical perspectives.
Climate urbanism is an example of this as a concept and theoretical body. Critically addressing those new policies, programs, and development initiatives aimed at first the active promotion of cities as viable and appropriate sites of climate action.
and, 2, the prioritization of significant efforts to protect the physical and digital infrastructures of urban economies from the hazards associated with climate change. This is the original definition of climate urbanism by long and rice
climate urbanism has brought component tools to study the current evolutions of cities and urban politics around climate change.
However, in a 2023 paper, Vanessaka, Stamberoto, L Linda Westman, and Ping-hong argue that academic and political attention on climate organism has been largely focused on flagship flagship projects, ecosystem and urban labs, while modest projects in provincial cities disappear in the shadows. This was tailored for Chinese climate urbanism, but it's also applicable more broadly in the argument.
Hence they push for an urban politics of looking elsewhere. And this is kind of the rational behind my presentation today, because I want to build on this observation and argue for a deeper engagement of
the critical urban literature with a region that has been vastly marginalized in urban studies. Pacific Islands.
One of the reasons for this is arguably scale. Pacific Islands are home to 2.5 million urban dwellers, more or less. So this is about 0 point 0 5% of the global urban population.
and this includes half of it in Papua, new Guinea alone.
But urbanization remains quite a recent phenomenon. In the Pacific Islands. Which also means that it's happening very fast in some contexts in the Solomon Islands, for example. The urban population has risen by 57% in 10 years between 2,010 and 2,020.
So for decades now, Pacific scholars like Teresia, T, Iowa, or a Pelli Haoafa, have critically assessed the notion of smallness associated to Pacific Islands.
I want to build on this today and extend this argument to the Pacific urban phenomenon. Setting aside labels of smallness and basic mesf on my background research.
I want to ask.
how can the theoretical tools given by climate urbanism and several time studies cover a space for the urban Pacific in critical urban theory. How can this enrich both pacific urban studies and contemporary developments of critical urban theory.
So just to start I want to kind of highlight this missing dialogue between the region and broader debates, which is like a two-way relationship. When talking of critical theory. I use the understanding of Brenner, who defines it through 4 constitutive elements. The provision of abstract arguments about the nature of urban processes under capitalism, reflectivity, about how knowledge of urban questions is mediated through power relations.
the rejection of urban analysis that promotes the maintenance and reproduction
of existing urban formations and concern for radically emancipatory forms of urbanism.
Both objects at the core of today's session. Climate urbanism and sabout and politics
can fit to an extent to this definition.
as put by Castan, Bruto, and Robin in 2,021. Climate urbanism, as a conceptual body is both a critique of contemporary forms of urban management and a normative commitment to the politics of of hope. In a climate change world.
This dual objective is arguably, arguably also present in the broad spectrum of works that focus on but urban Sabella and politics, including the works of Bay at Roy or Benjamin.
locating that conceptual critique and commitment for emancipatory emancipatory practice from the urbanizing global South.
What is going on. and in particular, from the figure of the slum. These authors characterize, first and foremost the forms of urban resistance that challenge dominance, postcoding our practices and discourses of urban planning and management.
while having largely diversified their case studies across the global North and South. These bodies of work have not encompassed the Pacific in their scope. Cities like Port Noresby in Papua, New Guinea, or Suva Fiji, have remained largely excluded from those bodies of work.
and in general.
the urban experience of all small at and developing states is not considered in these powerful conceptual bodies with knowledge, production disproportionately based either in the Anglophone, global, north, or selected contexts in the post-colonial world, including India or South Africa.
but reciprocally pacific. Urban studies have rarely engaged with critical developments of urban theory over the last decades.
It's a small but dynamic literature, largely coming from Australia or New Zealand-based authors, but also a growing number of Pacific-born authors. What I call pacific urban studies is constituted by works that explicitly focus on the urbanization process, urban livelihoods or urban environments in Pacific Island countries.
Those work come from very diverse disciplines, including sociology and anthropology, but mostly geography and urban planning
they started to develop in the 1980 S. When a series of challenging challenges and issues linked to fast and quote uncontrolled urbanization in the region started to be identified. As a result.
this literature, this literature, took from the start a solutions oriented but also government-oriented stance
from the start as well. Informal settlements took a lead role in this literature, seen either as a Hotspot for environmental, economic or health issues, or more recently, as a pool of indigenous knowledge that could help address those issues
link to this. A series of critical takes on the matter, have both emphasized the violent character.
Sorry
of pacific urban policies against slum dwellers, and proposed pathways for more just integration of the urban pool in Pacific cities
and Oski. Here I'm thinking of the work of Asinet in Moscow, in Suva, which is very interesting in that regard
over the last decades. those trends have also integrated a climate turn in which socioeconomic vulnerability has been analyzed jointly with climate vulnerability, and its counterpart resilience.
In turn. There has been a rising skepticism about top-down adaptation or resilience strategies and the call for more inclusive ones, relying on endogenous or indigenous resilience.
These works give both academics and practitioners extremely valuable insights, often emerging from impactful participatory action. Research. But as I was conducting my literature review, I couldn't help but notice the rare links with non-pacific critical theory.
or maybe sorry. Yeah, either from like a planetary urbanization Like Burner's critical theory, or, more interestingly, maybe the postcolnial ones.
This dialogue, whether to complete, criticize, or engage with this non-pacific literature, was mostly absent, echoing the absence of engagement of both, but postconnial and planetary urban theory with the urban phenomenon in the Pacific.
And yet at the same time it seemed that the interests of both pacific and non-pacific literature were converging
around climate change as a physical and socio-political phenomenon. and it's serve an impacts notably on the urban pool.
I believe there are several reasons for this absence of dialogue. First, it's not new to say that most urban theory has been developed around global cities or megacities.
And so ken theories developed for cities like Shanghai, Tokyo, or New York really be relevant in a city like Port della vanuatu that has less than 100,000 inhabitants.
And second, can we build generalization theories from cities that are put in good peripheral in the world economy, and only represent a tiny share of urban livelihoods worldwide.
Those questions are, of course, central in urban studies, and have been addressed for more than 2 decades. Now, for example, through the work of Jenny Robinson, and more recently, precisely on climate urbanism, Byakistan brought to Ital, as I showed in the beginning.
recasting the possibility to learn from small and mid-sized cities that have traditionally been left out of urban theory. Second. the pacific urban phenomenon is relatively unique in that it's characterized by weak decentralization of political power
attached to related disengagement of government actors from urban policy making and planning.
This is what urban scholars in the pacific have called the rural bias in the region explained by disproportionate political and financial weight given to rural constituencies with the urban still often seen as incompatible with pacific identities.
It's also characterized by the coexistence of customary and capitalist land systems, each attached to specific governance systems. We can come back to this in the questions afterwards. But this is really central in urban studies in the Pacific.
however, we should note that there is no power void in pacific cities taking a governance perspective. Several works have identified the multi-sector and multi-level partnerships.
collaborations, and conflict that steer urban development in Pacific island countries, including the role of of urban elites in land grabbing, or the role of some international actors and Ngos in reproducing some structural inequalities in the region's cities.
So, second, I want to kind of show, some path for enrichment around urban adaptation or resilience projects in the region.
This session and attention to the nexus between climate, urbanism, and Sebal turn. Politics are a great opportunity to turn our our attention to and learn from pacific urbanism.
because, like elsewhere, scholars working in pacific cities have looked at the relationship between the discourse and practice of urban adaptation and informality
in doing so, but without engaging explicitly with the climate, urbanism, or Southern politics literatures. They have shed lights on processes that play in the region that both echo and challenge some of these insights.
I'm thinking here in particular, of the work of Jennifer and Tokulo in Sova or Alex a trundle, and they're in Machvoy. In Honera.
The first observation is the mismatch between one of the first the core constituents of climate urbanism as defined by, along in rice, the active promotion of cities as viable, appropriate sites of climate, action, and the above-mentioned rural bias of pacific governance systems.
But there are, however, emerging initiatives and discourses aiming at integrating a specifically urban discourse and policy for climate adaptation.
This is the case notably in Fiji with the national adaptation, plan, integrating a whole urban section, or even local academic works, pushing for systematic master planning in cities with climate, adaptation, and resilience in mind
to an extent. This tells us that context matters. Climate urbanism is not a given, but a process negotiated between global discourses and interests and local socio-political trajectories.
Looking at the upcoming trends in Pacific Island countries. Regarding this may be particularly eloquent in highlighting the provisional and fragile character of urban climate, action in this course and practice.
Second, and building on this, despite vague mentions of flagship projects such as floating islands. This is in French Polynesia. It has been cancelled since then.
the general trend in pacific urban areas is that urban transformations linked to climate change are very much incremental and usually explicitly centered around the resilience of the urban pool, at least framed as such.
Well, climate organism, as it was originally framed, was very much fit to describe some of the mechanisms that play in the first kind of adaptations they often remain at the level of Utopias. From now
it seems to fall short of conceptual tools to analyze the second
And this is where studying the current developments of pacific urban adaptation projects could enrich climate urbanism as a conceptual body, for example, by integrating the new governmentalities at play in adaptation projects that explicitly target the urban subaltern and include a community-based discourse.
Third, and to conclude the central presence of indigenous politics. In urban adaptation, research, and practice in the Pacific
gives us a tool to further provincialize mainstream urban-critical theory.
The centrality of customary land ownership and governance systems in pacific urban debates
tells us that alternative systems of political and land organization are not only possible, but that they are also there deeply entrenched in some of the urbanization processes of the post-colonial world
climate. Urbanism in the Pacific is and will be characterized precisely by hybridizations between customary and neoliberal governance arrangements.
I think this hint at considering how alternative systems of political organization and alternative epistemologies, often located in urban margins, are also enrolled in urban climate action not only erased.
Now, what's in this deal for pacific urban studies and Indian communities? I mean the increased dialogue with that non-pacific urban literature?
What can a deeper engagement bring them
well. Pacific urbanization is unique, but the challenges faced by pacific communities emerge from constant interaction between those characteristics with global processes and flows.
Climate urbanism
has been developed precisely under this light to fight for radically emancipatory adaptation. Pathways in a neoliberalizing, neoliberalizing world
subalter and studies have also emerged with a similar ambition, highlighting the various ways in which collective action from below could challenge colonial structures. Inspiration from those bodies of work tailored to the pacific experience can enrich some of the insurgent imaginaries and practices of the region, but also help to build networks across borders with common vocabulary, vocabulary.
to fight not only for survival, but also for justice in the age of climate change.
To conclude sparking dialogues between climate urbanism, Sabbath and studies and pacific urban studies can help us build a better understanding of the urban implications of climate change beyond the global North and star magazities or ecosystem projects worldwide
for local actors, adopting some of those theoretical tools adapting them to the pacific context. can help reject some of the most aggressive. No liberal projects in the region.
but also better assess the political, social, and environmental impacts and stakes of the current projects that include a community-based or locally-led component.
and that arguably reconfigured the relationships between the urban sebaltern and government market and other civil society actors.
yeah. And also for us as either early career or established researchers in urban sociology.
This also means by that, by our voices and actions we can contribute to advancing an amendment. Secretary Agenda, by including pacific voices in our works, giving visibility to Pacifica scholars through edited volumes or publications that aim to critically engage with the concept we are dealing with everyday twice to address urban challenges in the age of climate change.
Yeah, basically. Yeah, that's it. Thank you.
Thank you very much. I was there. So let's move on through the February and the.
And then we're done half of like this. So
okay, yeah, yeah.
thank you. Good morning. Everyone.
Thank you for being here. even being this so early stations today. okay. So this paper stylist out of sight, out of mind. And this particular
title has been taken from the portals called Environment and society run by the Rachel Carlson Institute.
And I'm just trying to see. The issues of the West in the urban areas. And this I would like to state that this work
is actually a part of my ongoing projects on of an environment in which I'm trying to focus on 2 issues of of urban areas, mostly on water crisis and the West issues. So I'm just entering into the issues of the West. Now. So this is just a kind of introductory paper. So I would like to have the suggestions here. okay. So having said that
I would like to say that the issue of the waste is one of the most discussed topic in humanities and social science for a very long period of time. So we have, you know, failed to understand, or we have, you know, neglected the issues of waste in our urban studies and also in our environmental studies for a very long period of time.
And now, slowly, the scholars are coming up to see the issue of the West, as they are now understanding that the West is one of the very, very important, you know, elements to understand. the impact on environment as well as the issues of the climate change. Right? So
in this papers, I'll try to. You know, Link, how West
and social science are interlinked through various socio cultural politicals, material as well as economic aspects in our society.
So Many scholars Argue that this major scholarship on West has emerged from mostly from the technical and scientific domains that
has focused primarily on 2 fronts, first, on the West management issues through scientific and technical solutions, and second, on creating sustainability by following this, 3. Our proposals like recycling, reuse and reducing. But
In general Most of the scholars has failed to understand. the you know naturally as well as the cultural life of the West. that has been produced. So I, I, okay, that has been introduced in the with their, in their interactions with the human society.
So in this presentations, I take these questions on how West actually came into beings to relationship languages, politics, practice, and structures.
Therefore. I can see this, that to define waste is a very difficult tax, because we don't have that common theoretical as well as conceptuals. Frameworks from social science to deal with the issues of the West.
So Many scholars, they argue that the scholars on West are seldom united right so because of which it fail to get desirable attentions. Unlike the issues of the climate change.
Okay, so
for all this, while we have been treating the West in society as something to be kept out of our public sites, and therefore out of our minds. So it mostly remains out of our mind. So in this papers. I'll try to bring out the issues from one of the
hilly regions. A. From India or dawn is the dudgeoning hills, because, it's in the Eastern Himalian regions. And my research areas, it's based on that region. So I'll try to give a glimpse of how the issues of West can be integrated from the smaller town in the Himalayan regions, and how it can contribute to the discussions of.
you know, urban management as well as environmental studies. From the Himalian regions.
Okay. So Before going to the issues of which it is necessary to understand. Why that jelling hills has been a very important place. the Himalian regions or in the South Asian regions, and why the West issues of the West.
in the context of the dashing heels plays a very vital roles.
It is because the British, when they annexed the Darjelling hills, it is mostly because for the cynic beauty as well as the cool climatic conditions that the Djelling hills offer to the British opishiers so bargeling hills.
For the British has become a separate destinations to avoid tropical hits and digits of the plains in the South Asia.
So most of this British officials, they found that the Indian plains are dirty, crowded, and repelled with digitses, including malaria, tuberculosis, and I ran that habitually affected their health.
So this fear of tropical heat intensified further when it was found that the Diggesis cost more death than war during the British rule in South Asia's. So, therefore, the discovery of making Darjelling Hill as their summer capitals
was a search for a clean and was free space for the white settlement in South Asia's right.
So In fact, this does enter imperial projects or imperial expansions in various part of South issues.
It evolves through the dichotomy of pure and impures, clean and dirty
and modern, and traditions in which many natives, communities, and their way of lives were considered as impure, dirty, and hence they are considered as uncivilized.
So Darling Hills, during the British period they served as an important locations for the early colonial officials. as it resembles the second home for them.
So, after the conquest of Darjelling Hills in 1,839. Sorry it should be 1,835. The the British involved in rapid experimentations of establishing tea plantations in the heels that completely altered the demographic and landscape compositions of the hills.
so by the decades of the 1850 S. The dudgeling hills has witnessed a wave of migrations from various part of the South issues mostly to work in this newly established hill stations.
So this development of the heel stations during the British time. Within has lead to the increase of populations, both labor as well as colonial officials, and this has rigged it into various. You know, civic related issues in which water supply and West management was one of the where some of the prominent issues that were discussed during the Colonial Government.
So on first July 1,850 darling municipality. Municipality was established as one of the oldest Civic Institute in South Asia.
and through the establishment of this Institute the segregations of West was done mostly from the European settlement. So The segregation of the West was an important path for the British, because the British unofficially crowned. It
crowned the duddling hills as the Queen's queens of the hills, and this reinforced the significance of cleanliness in the colonial town.
However, this imaginations of duddling hills as being clean dust-free, and Fris
emirates to the segregation of not just waste or dust, but also the segregations of local community from the European settlements and push them towards the outskirts of Perry Ferry, of the newly established town.
for instance, many of the labor migrated from previous part of India, Nepal and Other Himalan state were settled in poorly constructed stop quarters in tea plantations
or in forested areas far away from the colonial site. As the segregations of community became rampants. The colonial State in Dartling Hills face acute shortage of labors.
mostly for the manual scavengers. Right? So in this context, the British recruited certain community called a balniki caste from the from different part of India, but mostly from the northwestern part of India, to clean human waste
in that dealing towns. So this relationship between caste and West in South Asia has a complex phenomenon, as many of you must be aware. How you know the compartmentalizations of occupations based on the cast has been followed in the South Asian context, right? So even in the context of the Darling Hills during the British rules.
the colonial State followed the same policies of compartmentalizations of occupations where mostly lower caste, were in a recruited to clean the human West.
So this community, popularly now as a super community, or in local term, they are known as Jamadar. So this community were interested with the cleaning of human West in the colonial summer capitals, or so-called the queens of the hills.
and they are settled at the periphery near the dumping sites with cramped housings. facilities similar to stop quarters in tea plantations.
So, therefore, the West came into being through complex relationship of colonial state and the local populations in which the language and politics of governance played a vital roles in segregating West, and those involved in West-leaning away from the colonial site and hands out of the colonial mind.
So in this entire process of making landscape, so we can see how the colonial State segregated the West as well as the local community from there, not only from their site, but also from their minds. Minding away, we can see how the issues of West and how the issues of this, you know, people involved in the waste are not mentions
in many of the colonial documents, so it is very difficult to dress right? So With this I'll now move on to the post-colonial politics of the West in Dardling Hills quickly.
So after the British slave of the country that I think, was made a part of the West Bengal state, and it continues to be a somber stations for many Aub and middle class.
Populations! Who reinforce the colonial imaginations of the town as the queens of the hills.
However, meanwhile the population of the town has increased drastically with many hotels and all the infrastructural developments.
There, by making the hills town more crowded.
So the civic and all the infrastructural facilities of the town developed during the British spirit failed to catter the need of the growing populations in the post, colonial, dazzling towns.
and all this post a serious challenge. We put the local administrations for the urban management in post-colonial society. So in all this, the problem of waste. nevertheless, did not draw much attentions.
as the issues of drinking water crisis emerge louder in the regions along with the issues of regional ethnic identity crisis. So we continue to subdue the issues of the West in both, in our regional politics as well as in our scholarship
at the global label, the decades of 1970 S. Witness a phenomenal rise of environmentalists group across the globes, and it opens the door for the discussions of the West in public domain.
As Robin Murray argued that as environmental tensions came to the 4 in the 1990 s. All the roads lead to waste
from from centuries of obscurity. The waste industry is found in itself at the hop of environmental arguments. So while this might have changed the discourse of waste at the global label at the regional level. The issue of waste
was yet to come out of the bin or the discussion into a public domain. So it was perhaps seen as something to be discarded in the dumping ground. Right? So it post. Colonial society continued to follow the similar in a governance patterns of the Colonial Government, in which the West and the local communities were continuously segregated away from the urban cities or from the site of the, you know, organ administrations.
So darling municipality, although met some attempts to manage surely to waste by collecting it through a centralized wish collection system called bats. However.
it is disposing into a dumping sites without any proper and effective planning, so due to the Heilitarians, and is geographic.
you know. Characteristics, the most of the receding in djiling hills through their west in the nearby springs, or so-called small river. Okay? So that's give birth to numerous environmental impact on the region.
So, most importantly, many times, west policy at local label has been influenced heavily by civil societies or political parties who have their own vested interest. So in Darling Hills, if you if you see the election records of the last 8 years, the civic elections has mostly been played out through the agenda of the West. Right? So I'll just
show you some of the pictures on how the politics of the West management is now becoming one of the important agent does for many political parties to, you know, get into power as well as to get electoral support in the urban areas. So this is from the opposition parties where they are trying to, you know. blame the local administrations for not being, you know, a vocal towards the west clearance right? And
this is also from the This is from the ruling parties where they are, you know, constantly. orging the local residents to through the West only in the in a designated areas and not in the open spaces. So in conclusion, we can see how the political manifestations of West has now become a part of the everyday conversations in the hills.
and however how the colonial attitudes of treating West and local community continues at the same time, and all this leads to the segregations of the West.
as well as segregations of the local community somewhere in a far away from the site of the local administrations, or somewhere far away from the side of the public domains, and they are segregated at the periphery of the newly established sound. So I think I'll just like to conclude here, because, this is just the introductory, you know. papers.
that of my ongoing project on West and water mostly related to the urban environmental issues. So I would like to have comments and suggestions. yeah, okay, thank you.
So thank you very much.
Space
a.
I don't know. Secondary
nothing.
So thank you.
And so.
thank you.
Okay, Louis, from the Philippines. for the first presenter. I don't know if it touch. If your lecture, if you touched on some discussion about of course, there's a
the the countries the States that we're talking about belong to
almost the same region. But collectively, we have small island states working as well, including small island states in other parts of the world. So I'm just wondering if at the regional level as there I'm sure there were. But has there been a highlight on urban policies or urban efforts to
mitigate consequences of climate, and even maybe on waste? And how
actions of
bigger States would affect small island states in general. I'm asking, because, of course, the the the Philippines may not be considered as a small island state, but it is also facing the same problem as that of a small island states which you have included in your study.
Thanks for the question, we. And
yeah, it was. It's always quite interesting to relate the Pacific and small island developing States as a group in general.
And so
regarding my argument in general, I have not seen many links between
particular urban theory, like global critical theory and cities in small States as a whole, like some exceptions, for example, in Jamaica, all the mind types. But it's it remains very much now.
but yeah, at the regional level, it's interesting to see that in the latest regional strategies and documents, and so on.
The world urban is never mentioned. So it's very much steer at the local level. That urban action appears
at the national level to some extent, as like, for example, in the Fiji National Adaptation plan, which has an urban component. But still it's very much to be seeing whether this will be implemented in practice.
and and then there are some
again, this is very much state-centered, and so on, because you also have
initiatives from UN habitats in the region. That kind of try to build a regional pacific
climate action.
Urban. Sorry? so yeah, it's it's really multi-level and and
really interesting to see all of those dynamics, but in general, at the regional level, in like a government aspect, it remains very much rural, biased and and climate action is not really
touch, like from the early perspective.
Thank you, Augusta. I have a question which, directly it's all that I'm staying most from the University of Entropy in Belgium? Does it have to be urban? Can it not just be local local adaptation? So why does it have to be urban.
It's a very good question.
Yeah. one of the things, and it's what's been identified in the Pacific literature since the the 1,900 ninetys is that there are some specific urban configurations in the Pacific
that don't allow, like basically different realities in urban rural areas in the Pacific and in particular, those are around.
So for the presence of our agriculture in rural removed areas that allow people to sometimes better.
yeah, we stands, trucks and stresses.
but also the fact that solidarity networks are also very much
more present in rural areas. The pesticides region where you really have those customary indigenous networks of solidarity, like
in the Ceremon Islands, for instance. Well went up systems that have been research. No. that in urban areas tend to fade away because there is so much diversity and so on.
But at the same time there have been lots of authors saying that urban areas also like create new and existence and new solidarity networks.
So.
of course, the local adaptation, like locally led adaptation and local adaptation, is a very much important component. But the fact that there are some vulnerabilities that are like kind of unique to the specific urban systems
make it, I think, important to address it from an urban.
and people in the rural areas in the Pacific know their environment very well and are resilient because they get under all in terms of government services and support.
And there there are lots of examples of adaptation to climate change issues. The biggest crisis, I think, that would occur in the Pacific is if there are increased droughts because
and droughts have occurred, have created great problems. And sea level right is something that people are adapting to and and which they're making worse themselves by clearing mangroves.
But The problem with the urban dwellers is albertization is very rapid and very recent, and people there are moving to an alien environment that they know less about. And so they are more vulnerable because they've moved into the urban areas.
Thanks. I have a question for you, and it seems that one thing you talk about is that there are some kind of historical inequalities created, and that they seem to keep living on, even if the situation changes. So you see that we.
you see this with colonialism. But you have also some research that's about slavery in the Us. And how these these systems that are created in the past, that they create
a lot of inequalities, also environmental inequalities and health issues in that it seems that when colonialism.
fate not dispute, but can faith in slavery as well that these systems
keep living on?
and I think
that's that's an issue. And I always wonder. Is there a way to? Is this inherent? Is there good way to avoid this? Because it seems that it happens all over the world, and these things keep keep happening everywhere, and they keep giving on. So I was just maybe a difficult question, but was wondering if you have any ideas that or you know some cases that they didn't, or they could have avoided, and how
well! thank you for the commission. Actually. I myself associate more with this environmental historians rather than with the work of sociology, because my thesis was purely on the environmental history of theitarian himales.
So what I found interesting is that, you know, when we talked about environments or environmental issues of climate change, we often try to see the specks of, you know, mostly the forest, or you know, our plantations or other kind of issues.
but we often tend to forget the issues of the West, and when I try to look at historically. Then I found that the West has played a very important role in the creations and human societies, you know, and also in the segregations of the human societies, you know, like
segregations of the reach and the poor societies, and that has and that has, you know, has had a lasting impact on the competitions in society which we are witnessing even today. So in on your questions of how you know or whether this can be, you know inhale, it's or is that the question? Right? So does it always have to be a inherent
can get like, I just got that part. Right? Yeah. But you know, like, this is what I'm trying. This is why I'm trying to bring the issues of West into the social science, because the engineers, technicians, and mostly scientists, have
deal with the West, you know. And they have focused very specifically on the economic aspect of the West, or how to convert the West into an energy or an economy right? But when we don't see the human aspect of the West, and how West and human lives are interrelated. So it's very difficult to, you know us
break this whole trend of creating some particular community as impure and some as pure. So we often tend to segregate this pure and impure in our everyday, in or everyday relationship with the West.
because even in society, where I leave the West or manual, what has to be done by that particular community on the right. So even if the West is occupations with generates economy which you know, which is a salary given operation. But most of the people don't want to do because it is associated with the dignity and the cast.
So I think we need to understand the suspect of waste
from the social sciences perspective. So
I think maybe we can, you know.
in the future we can think something along that line.
I was wondering what would happen, because waste is changing in social status. In this search, in the circular economy it becomes a resource, and therefore something with a higher status. What would that change if that would also happen in, if waste becomes
a resource and something of of a higher state, and something useful. Would that change the whole geographical path to social relations, do you think?
But I think it's very difficult to, you know.
I dis associate ways with the structural dignity, because many people don't want to see the issue of the West as their probation, no matter how much money or income you generate from the West. Right? So even if they give me $100, you know, to clean, which I don't want to do that, because that's something called which is considered as in pure and lower cost or untouchable job. Right?
So I think this very social stigma associated with the waste needs to be, you know, Critically engaged in the social sciences, and I'm trying to look it from the historical point of view, because
I think, without understanding the history, or how certain particular community are interested with certain particular occupations, by when liberty, or when any kind of powers were there
in the making of the landscape or in the making of the State. So it is very difficult to understand the contemporary engagement of the West and community.
right?
I just wanted to thank you for the presentations. I'm Chanel, and I'm a Phd. Candidate from Syracuse University.
So
I had a question for Sundays. So you talked about the activism around based issues. Do you think a lot of it is also happening in an intersection with activism around caste issues. Because I think that especially in a lot of parts of the global South,
environmental issues are sort of sometimes not.
I don't know. They're not talked about as central to everybody's lived reality as much as something like class or cast is. So do you think that building sort of like a movement around the intersection of both can be more powerful.
Okay, yeah, yeah.
actually, there's this whole genre for the creatures and the cast
and the issues of West. And even how even today.
peoples in global South, especially in India, some particular community like the lead are involving
in manual scavenger's job. Right? So I haven't deleted those nitrations very closely yet. But I'm planning to go through it But on the questions of activism, I think this needs to be in a active regions, if it's e ends at the policy level or at a quality label, will not lead to this kind of.
you know, on a detachment between the West and the cast, because that is
many times the waste issues has been raised by the activist or the civil societies
and most of the west policy in global sun as well as in global norms, are very much influenced by the civil societies and their agenda. So I don't think that that sort of activisms can lead to, you know, something very concrete. Rather, we need activities which ends at.
you know, all
at the label of the society
right at the level of everyday activities of
human engagement with the West. or, in fact, we can, in fact, we need to change the whole discourse of the West. Right
now there has been some initiative in some, but
the Himalian regions where the West now needs to be collected from your door right, and that you need to pick up your own waste and drop it into the centralized system. That's why they have introduced the centralized system, because otherwise this manual scavengers, they will go and collect it from their door. Right? So they wanted to break this barrier of considering certain community as a waste collector.
So they wanted to introduce the centralized system. So I think that kind of initiative or active vision might.
you know, open up some space. But I don't think that political activities or civil society kind of activisms will have.
you know, a really concrete impact on society.
Sanjay and he came in at the tail end of your presentation. But I wanted to show 2 examples which speak to the conversation that was just happening now. One is from fully 3,000 kilometers further west in Karachi. So immediately after partition, Karate.
as the communities migrated in different directions.
the Hindu the low-ass community that was associated with cleaning the the sanitation, and that kind of work was effectively prevented from migrating out of Karachi in Pakistan, so that they could continue to do that kind of work which other communities didn't want to do. And so this was like, as you're saying it, post colonial state.
not even a Hindu setting right. But they still had these inculcated mindsets where they passed on and continued and and retained up to now. And the other example I wanted to share was from Vienna so totally different. There.
you're talking about the dignity of waste workers, and there it's a unionized job. And somehow, through like a very assertive sort of presence. They have a very like these fluorescent orange pants that become like a marker, or they do this kind of work, but it has a different sort of quality, of the dignity of labor, of unionized labor which is present. They do these fundraising activities. They hold rock concerts.
It's quite like, you know, distinctive And then they have a presence in the city which is very different. And 2 examples perhaps you could consider. But thank you for.
So I have. 2 questions for both of you. So one is in relation to the comments. I understand that your focus is more environmental issues regarding workers. And in this case waste workers. But I wonder whether there are similarities with other cleaners kind of like domestic cleaners, for example, and if you think that there are parallel equations that you can draw on.
And the second point is, if you think that the power relationship that you mentioned earlier in terms of
colonial times, and now has changed now with the involvement of different social groups, different castes, and things like that. And for Augustine it's like booting thing would be the contribution of
pacific urban studies
theoretically to more kind of
global urbanism, or, more like, let's say, glue and south urbanism. Yeah, what would be distinctive? Yeah.
all right.
Thanks again.
so I think it's dual on the one hand
right now, and and especially
because it's my the length I I look through this on like climate change. And it's impact on women likelihoods
organization.
the.
I think, like the fact that the indigenous epistemologies and and land ownership is so present in pacific urban areas is kind of this.
I mean, this is also present in other context, but it's so central in the Pacific. I think it allows us to resend this in the urban discussion and look at
actually, alternative systems of land ownership and and governance. And second, it's also the fact that
there is
all this action around climate change that is impacting all those different areas. And of course, this has been studied elsewhere. But it's so present in the Pacific, and there is so much
money coming in around this topic and affecting all the other areas of urban life. I think it's really interesting to see how aspect scholars are also looking at this from a post-colling events.
And thank you to
other 2 of these
before you answer, can I just but it. Hey, yeah, just to continue the discussion. do you think that there is also potential? And, theoretically speaking, related to Sonia's question.
There's potential in this on post, brutal urban binary theorization of islands, because usually I don't tend to culture. I like urbanism, or it just islands can't control images of tourism and some other stuff, but and then, like urbanization, is also very sedentary, like land based. And then we can also probably include more oceanic imaginaries or narratives in terms of urbanization, like, what are we talking about that?
Yeah, it's it's very interesting. Because these days, especially in the Pacific, all the larger journal projects and and policies are based on this blue Pacific idea, which exactly around the blue economy and value like getting value from the oceans. Basically. And I think this is still a bit independent from the urban discussion in the Pacific. there is not really a talk of
yeah.
Yeah. But so far it has. I wouldn't say it's so much based on this
current urban theory in the Pacific is very much
centered on the city itself, and in particular, around informal or villages in the city.
I just want to tell you the words of Andre or Tega from Syracuse University.
It's going to be great.
Okay?
yeah. on your first questions, on domestic cleaners, you know, like, I have not really third on that. So
I thank you for giving me this hint to think along this language. That's interesting, you know, and on the second questions of how this colonial hangovers are still in playing out
a big role in terms of the segregation of Western community. Yeah, I think for that region. One of the important part we need to do is to bring this interdisciplinary dialogue.
doing science and social science on the issues in the West.
Right? And only then we can come out with Something, you know. A middle ground to think about. But slowly the trains are changing, because many many different Population groups are in both now, involving in the West directions. And now West Activism, in some way, as you said.
has also become a kind of voluntary now, and many students, many, you know, different kind of groups are coming out to speak for the issues of the West, because it's the new generations they are now realizing that the West
that we are producing is leading us to averaged in a dangerous future ahead. So I hope that the stream continues and something come up, you know. So
yeah.
for questions.
hey?
I'd like to offer a historical perspective you started off talking about. There's a lack of publications on urbanism in the organization in the Pacific. True.
and a lack of Pacific islands, skilled researchers and scholars. True, and as I contributed to both of those issues, I'd like to share with you some of the history, and the University of the South Pacific was established as a regional university, and therefore from the very word go, it had a more international
idea of itself, but it was small and remote.
but the University of Papua, New Guinea, where I began my career was established along with the University of Technology, to serve the needs of the nation. and there was never this idea that it had to be part of the broader world.
I went there. It was my first job. I had no connections with metropolitan institutions, most of us who started our careers there were not part of some international and metropolitan network.
We were there very much as idealistic people to help in the development of Papua, New Guinea. It was newly independent. The university was new, therefore we did very applied practical research. It had to be relevant to the needs of the nation. It had to make a difference internally. So we produce tons of gray literature.
reports, discussion papers, and also internal Papua, New Guinea journals, but they never sort of got outside the country. So that was one of the things that we never had this idea of contributing to global literature. We had an idea of contributing to the needs of the nation. Also we tend to. We had a tendency, I think, as a group of young researchers, to dump theory, because it was a
fine construct, and it was Westernisation, and so on, so we were totally applied and practical. It has not done my career much good in the long term, but it was very important to that point in time. The other issue was, we worked very closely with a lot of Papua New Guinea colleagues.
but the Government's attitude was that we are not interested in the localisation of the university. We want the university to keep on producing graduates. We want the government to become entirely Papua, new guineanised
And so our graduates were gobbled up very rapidly to go and work in the government and take over the public service, and especially those who got high degrees
that strengthened the relationship between those of us who were university academics.
but it reduced the impact of Papua, New Guineans in particular, as as researchers contributing to a global scholarship. It was very inward-looking, in a sense. but the process of
making the government pap and the unionized was quite effective. It succeeded in that sense, but those are some part of the historical background, and certainly up to the beginning of the nineteenth or in mid 19 nineties. That was very much the process we just hadn't produced stuff that was international.
And it wasn't seen as a priority.
Yeah, aside from that like, this is probably viewing away from like urbanism in the Pacific. But I would just like to mention that I am just like minutes ago, coordinating with
a Phd. Student in Fiji who wants to present, but that they didn't have funding. So
that's also like probably an underlying issue, some sort of like the the post grants right now are also interested in urbanism in the Pacific. But then they didn't have really funding. So yeah, that's probably contributing to like the lack of papers. There are papers there. There are researchers who want to, because I'm really coordinating with them their researchers who want to do this. But then, lack of
funding really is an issue.
and this is
But thank you very much, David. And
but Moresby was really central in that. I think that urban discussion up to the mid 2,000.
And then it's really I don't know. I I really don't find much on what it must be since then. So I think this is also link to this
to disasters.
No, it's yeah. It's definitely a really interesting discussion on the. And and this also includes this, the empowerment of Pacifica researchers and
the universities in the Pacific. Working on this.
It's something that is. I mean, from an external perspective. It's very.
I just like to mention that. Yeah.
there, they actually want to develop like urban studies as well, like, what's that university in Fiji, like University of South Pacific? Yeah, we are. I correlated with them. And then they said we couldn't, partner, because we don't have like urban studies in our university. But we want to. We won't like module development or curriculum development, but we don't have, like again, like resources and everything. But it's like part of their plan in the future. So
I really need to connect you with them.
Yeah, my question to sang it was around you said your project was around waste and water. So I'm just curious as to what are some of the links you're aiming at making or planning to make between your what you presented here and the issue of water.
Yeah, my, this, I mean is on the urban environment. And I'm focusing on the 2 issues of
bringing motor crisis and the West management. So then, I, as I said, I'm more interested in historical than looking at the now. So I'm trying to look this historical linkages of the urban planning, open management and the issues of water and West and I realized that the, you know, hold the scores of augment plan in the open management
in the last 100 years has been chanted on the issues of the water.
and, like water, has been so central in the discussions of the organizations or album management in the Himalayan regions, and even then, even then still, now, we have the cute water crisis
in the regions. We have a very pathetic water and fast structures in the region. But on the same times we have totally neglected the issues of the West. And today with, you know, the increasing population and the increasing number of West. The issue of the West. you know. Directly or indirectly, is affecting the urban management very badly, and that is, you know, Taking a different ship. And this there has been a different kind of manifestations of West, as I
shown in my Slide, that the political manifestation has also started taking place. So I'm trying to see how this you know. kind of manifestations of both a what issues and west issues is affecting the urban planning as well as our problem management systems.
In a
so I do some work on Indonesia, and there are some cities in which water has become a very political contested issue. So we can, we can discuss more on that if you are interested, because, yeah, it's becoming the issue, for many people and many social movements are kind of driving on the idea of what's the situation between water access
and growth in the city, and who gets access to that water, and who will get access to the water
with more questions, comments.
So before we go, if we want to go a participatory exercise. So do you want to say something that you learned today in the session? One single thing that you have learned before we go that maybe it's good feedback for the 2 presenters
who would like to start
Lou in me.
Can you
thank you. So? well, since this is a participatory exercise. Okay, I guess that's the key word there participation, I mean, from the discussions that we've had this morning the
access of
and participation of Pacific Island scholars and the Pacific Islands in general. In the discussion of climate
climate, venison, and its consequences to the countries, I guess participation really is very, very important at this point in time. also in the discussion of waste participation in in different levels that whether it's coming from the National Government book of government or civil society
organizations, or the members of the community themselves. They it's it's an issue that not that cannot be resolved only by one party.
It really has to. It requires participation of multiple levels of significant actors. We need. So participation is the key worker. Thank you
in the
yeah. I mean, I don't know if this is feedback, but I just learned like a lot from the presentations. And I was also like, kind of inspired. Because so my research is based in Islamabad and a lot of times. So in the Us. Academy, particularly
I'm always struggling to answer like the. So what question like, why is it relevant like? Why should we care? And so like listening to both the presentations was like really inspiring? Because, like, there's a lot of like new work happening outside of those big, you know, global cities
that's relevant. And it's hopefully going to sort of, you know, help us reshape theory. So yeah.
thank you.
Yeah, I think I don't know anything about the Pacific. So I I was bound to learn a lot. So the nature of urbanization. The Pacific was interesting, and and the connection also with Norwich production in in the Pacific and the position of universities. I just struggled to
develop urban status that was really interesting. And then, you know, the question about waste. I was interesting, I mean the whole way. It was tied into made a very strong
connection between waste and and the case system I I was aware of. But but how difficult is to bring that link, I think, was was interesting. Yeah.
yeah, yeah. And I really didn't know anything about the Pacific and Pacific City. So that was interesting just to learn about and to think about, and as well as you told a bit about the history.
and
to see how these these disciplines develop, and and how how it came to be that there's not much knowledge. So that was, I think, interesting. And also I I found your presentation very interesting to see, like the link between, like a colonial history. And then how there's narratives or imaginaries created about the place, that they are very
difficult to get rid of and have this ties into like environmental issues, but also issues of work and and the evaluation of work
and workers. So I think. thank you both for the presentations.
I just like to say that. Now I'm thinking about the narratives of waste in the Pacific, and how? Yeah, you can collaborate, probably, and how it is entrenched in the organization of the Pacific. So waste in the Pacific future paper.
they know.
Okay, so one familiar with Augustine's work. But something that I got is like, it's his first presentation here. First conference presentation. So congratulations.
Well done! Yes, and Sunday very much. I I like the the historical analysis of your presentation very much so. Thank you very much, because it was really nice to have a perspective of, you know the importance, I think that one issue is that we again. Subtly many of these workers remain in this civil. So it's really good to put the light on like the contribution, which is a historical contribution, as we know. So thank you very much.
I just like to ask a Zoom participant participant. Zaneta, do you have something to say?
Zanetta Jansen: thanks very much. Now I'm good. I I kind of joined a bit late, so I must. I just caught the last end of the paper. So very interesting discussion, though. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Thank you for dining a line.
any other comments, final comments.
So if you want to any things that you want to say us.
Would you go from the session, even if the feedback was useful?
Yeah, I mean, it was a very reaching the feedbacks. And it's it's very really tables. And you know, it's very nice to have a feedback from disciplines as well. A different region, right? So I I look forward to to develop this paper.
And yeah, that I'll leave it for you. So you can think of that. So I will definitely like to develop this paper further. Thank you.
Thank you very much for coming today to discussion, and we will see you around for the rest of the conference. Thank you, Irene, very much. She's working the full week, and she's doing a great job. So thank you so much.
Thank you. People aligned
here.
Hello, Flavia! Oh, the session is just ending. Do you want to talk to love you? No, we can just say, Hello, Flavio, how are you? Yeah, we're closing the session. It ended early, so we'll see you on Friday. Bye, bye.