Rethinking Resilience: Climate Justice and Community Action Across Borders with Céleste Pepin

Welcome to the second interview in our special mini series, Eco-Justice and Climate Action. Today our guest, Céleste Pepin, graduate of the Gender and Social Justice Studies Honours program at McGill University, joins Blane and Joe, to share their work: “Politics of Resilience-Building: Explorations of Community-Based Interventions in Trinidad and Tobago”.

An inspiring researcher, Queen Elizabeth Scholar (2023) and student, Celeste shares their insights from working and living in a new environment, the impact of research “trends” like resilience on project planning, and the intersections of action research and feminist methodologies. Join us for an exciting conversation traversing the many aspects of action research and beyond.

Céleste first shares how the opportunity to engage in action research came to be during their undergraduate degree, as well as the project beginnings [01:00]. This led to exploring the preparation and challenges of working in an unfamiliar environment [6:57], along with the tensions they encountered between international agency funding and local realities on the ground in Trinidad and Tobago [10:11]. Céleste also reflects on the role of the university and how institutional context shapes the way research is designed and conducted [17:16]. Together, we explore the surprising parallels between climate resiliency efforts in Montreal and Trinidad and Tobago [20:53], leading to a rich discussion about the responsibility of the Global North to learn climate adaptation strategies from the Global South [24:00]. This connects to a broader conversation about the links between feminist popular education and action research as complementary frameworks [26:31], before closing with key takeaways and lessons Céleste is carrying forward [29:41].

Thank you Celeste for sharing your time and work with us.

Thank you to our listeners for tuning in to this episode of the Action Research Podcast, created by Adam Stieglitz, Joe Levitan, Shikha Diwakar, Cory Legassic, and Vanessa Gold.

Produced by Shikha Diwakar and Vanja Lugonjic.

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How have you found yourself in the world of action research? Want to be interviewed or share one of your projects? Get in touch with us.

Biography:

Céleste Pepin is a graduating Gender and Social Justice Studies Honours student at McGill University. Their research focuses on the use of feminist imperial foreign policies within international armed conflicts and uses decolonial feminist perspectives to analyze the gendered dynamics of war and the legitimization strategies employed by Western states during military interventions in the Global South. By foregrounding decolonial feminist perspectives, they challenge conventional narratives and highlight the complexities of power relations in contemporary geopolitics.

Resources:

Environmental Organizations in Trinidad and Tobago

Green T&T: an NGO working in ecotourism

CANARI: Ensuring that people whose livelihoods depend on the environment have a say in its protection and management

Fondes Amandes, reforestation project

ERIC, community-based approach to reef management and protection

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This episode is part of our Eco-justice and Climate Action Series. Authors from journal articles in a Special Issue of the Canadian Journal for Action Research hop behind the mic and share the inspirations, process, and findings from their projects. Join Joe Levitan, Shikha Diwakar and special guest host Blane Harvey, as they interview an inspiring group of researchers, educators, organizers, and more, navigating the process of action research.