IAS Seminar: Worldmaking the global climate order: reparative politics in small island developing st

IAS Residential Fellow Dr Gemma Sou delivers a seminar on their research.

Small island developing states (SIDS) are disproportionately affected by climate change yet have been marginalised within the global climate regime. Often overlooked are their purposeful collective efforts to reform global climate governance to increase self-determination over their climate futures. Drawing on interviews with civil servants in Antigua and Barbuda, this talk argues that we can reframe SIDS transnational actions as contemporary worldmaking—a resistance-driven process of reimagining and reshaping global systems to foster greater self-determination. The capacity of SIDS to act as worldmakers reveals how ideas of self-determination and resistance endure, even under profoundly disadvantageous structural conditions, offering critical insights into the possibilities for a more just and inclusive global climate regime. This emphasis also moves beyond the local and regional to centre imaginaries of climate governance at the global scale, showing how such imaginaries are also informed by the emotional and historical terrain of SIDS.

Arrivals from 11.45am for a 12pm start. For those joining in-person, lunch will be served after the seminar from 1pm.