Embodying Environmental Justice: Collective Action and Community Resilience as Forms of Peacebuilding

Date & Time
Jun 19, 2026 | 11.00 - 12.30

Participants
Becca Farnum, Queen Mary University of London (United Kingdom)
Austin Willacy, EnPAx Arts Initiative (United States)
Jacob Yen Alier, Konybaai Education Initiative (South Sudan/Kenya)
Anjali Vurden, FemWise-Africa (Mauritius)
Breanna Riddick, Climates of Resistance (United States)

This panel will question the boundaries of environmental peacebuilding, exploring the field’s spatial, temporal, and thematic scope through a range of case studies. Key dimensions in environmental justice will be used to consider: -the unequal distribution of risks and resources as a contributor to conflict, including through ‘quiet’ forms of systemic violence; -the recognition - or lack thereof - for various actors, beneficiaries, victims, victors, etc. in environmental peacebuilding policy and practice; and -the role of inclusive participation in decisionmaking about peacebuilding processes and human-nature relations. Attention to ‘obvious’, accepted issues in environmental peacebuilding (militarized conservation and campesinos peacemaking efforts in post-treaty Colombia; intercommunity tree-planting workshops in post-genocide Rwanda) will be presented alongside topics that might not be labelled as ‘environmental peacebuilding’ (the role of collective singing in boosting stamina for protestors; the intersections of climate justice with reproductive justice). This juxtaposition - with each presentation connected through the environmental justice framework - will produce a rich dialogue about the benefits and drawbacks of defining the field too broadly…or too narrowly. ********** Chair: Becca Farnum, Queen Mary University of London (UK), becca.environmentalpeace@gmail.com Paper #1: Chantal Mukeshimana, We Do Green (Rwanda), wedogreenrwanda@gmail.com Paper #2: Breanna Riddick, Climates of Resistance (USA), info@climatesofresistance.org Paper #3: Tim Stork, University of Tilburg (Netherlands), t.stork@tilburguniversity.edu Paper #4: Austin Willacy, EnPAx Arts Initiative (USA), donoharmonica.enpax@gmail.com (Abstracts and titles forthcoming for the individual presentations. We wanted to get the panel abstract in by the priority deadline, but promise the others are coming very soon! The panel abstract highlights the four case study topics for our individual interventions.)