Paper short abstract:

This presentation asks how, as an academic from the Global North, is it possible to truly hold space for, and actively listen to, the voices of those living through everyday environmental change, particularly when those voices refuse to fit with 'official' storylines.

Paper long abstract:

Informed by ethnographic work with women and LGBTQIA communities in Fiji, Kiribati, and Nauru this presentation asks how, as an academic from the Global North, is it possible to truly hold space for, and actively listen to, the voices of those living through everyday environmental change, particularly when those voices refuse to fit with 'official' storylines and trouble the high stakes of the climate industry. From research fatigue and resentment, to climate denial, the expectation of extractive and unethical fieldwork practices, and ambivalent relations to neocolonialism and external economic assistance, this talk focuses on what it means to amplify self-representation and self-determination in a precarious environment already exhausted by the ongoing legacies of whiteness, colonialism and aid.