Julie RenDec 2, 2022
Dr. Farhana Sultana
The overwhelming whiteness of research on my brown country is as old as colonial legacies here. Too many are not experts in our own land unless we are 'validated' somehow, like through the Western gaze, group collaborations, or citations. And this isn't the only space where this occurs.
Dec 2, 2022 at 5:41amMastodon for iOS
Show threadDr. Farhana SultanaDec 2, 2022
I'm trying to battle this whiteness of expertise with my roots, historical knowledge, cultural sensitivity, intergenerational wisdom, responsibilities here. The mobility of whiteness unroots researchers from places IMO. I'm embedded in this delta & the delta saturates my spirit.
#colonialism #science #research
Show threadDr. Farhana SultanaDec 2, 2022
But we are often ghettoized as empiricists/regionalists instead of as theorists & knowledge-creators. We are often tokenized or fetishized. We are not all native informants & noble savages. Some of us don't feel the need to write voluminous amounts. Our knowledge is precious.
Show threadanlomedadDec 2, 2022
@farhanasultana
<no scientist>
The uprooting and delta ... how poetic ... probably begins in edu.
Have been thinking, what if climate research agenda, nat-sci and soc-sci, had been set by equatorial researchers from the get-go.
Like...for example, would equatorial agenda-setting in research and scicomm have put the immediate danger to the front, instead of poor polar bear babies by 2100 noone can relate to? Wd that have swayed the decadent Global North, incl. NGO, in 2009 to adopt 1ºC ?
Show threadanlomedadDec 2, 2022
@farhanasultana
The agenda, instead, was set by white researchers who have 0 personal nor cultural memory of famine, of state structures crumbling under onslaughts of droughts, storms and floods.
No wonder then that they themselves don't realize & don't face the danger, and just keep believing in averages and in linear trends.
Where, what really threatens civilisation as a whole are the extremes, ofc. But bc they don't *feel* extremes in their bones, they've set the agenda for far-away 2100.
Show threadDr. Farhana SultanaDec 2, 2022
@anlomedad_real If Global North had listened to several Global South scholars/researchers & lived experiences & wisdom of millions even in the 1980s, we would have had much better climate outcomes now.
Show threadanlomedadDec 2, 2022

@farhanasultana
Ja. What, in a practical example, would have been different in research & scicomm?

When I began to become climate-aware 2018, the 🇩🇪 🇬🇧Twitter climate bubble was full of polarbear babies-equivalents and of empathy and sympathy with remote generations and remote regions.
That the EcoClimateClusterfck can hit us and annihilate us here was unthinkable, still is for most.
Eg., Will Steffen's 2019 call for soc-sci to investigate near-term crash was discarded https://theconversation.com/our-climate-is-like-reckless-banking-before-the-crash-its-time-to-talk-about-near-term-collapse-128374

Our climate is like reckless banking before the crash – it’s time to talk about near-term collapse

Our food, finance, and logistics systems are worringly vulnerable to climate shocks – we can’t rule out collapses within a decade.

The Conversation