This course critically explores climate and environmental justice in the African context through an examination of the concept of justice, impacts of climate change such as extreme droughts, floods, and forced migration, and the attendant adaptation and mitigation strategies, climate change policies, and environmental challenges.

The African continent is projected to experience some of the worst impacts of climate change, and yet Africa is central to addressing the planetary crisis of our time. The course will therefore engage African philosophies, knowledges, and experiences of climate change and environmental injustices to critically reflect on the significance of geographies of knowledge in addressing global challenges. The course will engage key African scholarship incorporating Africana theories, case studies, ethnographies, songs, and films that will locate African challenges and agency in the efforts to address climate and environmental injustices.

At the end of the course, students will have gained in-depth understanding of the complex nature of addressing global challenges and the significance of African perspectives and geographies of knowledge in these efforts, having engaged critically with epochal concepts such as the Anthropocene, Capitalocene, and Plantationocene. Students will be well equipped to design robust theoretical frameworks for studying climate and environmental justice in Africa and beyond.