Decolonize climate adaptation research

Abstract

Climate-forced population displacement is among the greatest human rights issues of our time, presenting unprecedented challenges to communities and the governments responsible for protecting them. Sea level rise, heat, drought, and wildfires will cause people to move, losing homes and places they love, often with no ability to return. Indigenous Peoples have done the least to cause this crisis and face the loss of lands and connections to ancestral, cultural, and spiritual heritage. To ensure that their right to self-determination is protected and the horrific legacy of government-forced relocations is not repeated, communities must lead and define research on climate-forced displacement and managed retreat that involves them and the lands upon which they dwell and subsist. A focus on human rights, and decolonization of research to change institutional structures of knowledge production, can help communities define their future in a climate-altered world.