Low-lying Pacific island nations are experiencing the frontline of sea-level rises and climate
change and are responding creatively and making-sense in their own vernacular terms. Pacific
Climate Cultures aims to bring Oceanic philosophies to the frontline of social science
theorization. It explores the home-grown ways that 'climate change' becomes absorbed into the
combined effects of globalization and into a living nexus of relations amongst human and
non-humans spirits and elements. Contributors to this edited volume explore diverse examples
of living climate change-from floods and cyclones through song and navigation to new forms of
art community initiatives and cultural appropriations-and demonstrate their international
relevance in understanding climate change. A Prelude by His Highness Tui Atua Efi and Afterword
by Anne Salmond frame an Introduction by Tony Crook & Peter Rudiak-Gould and nine chapters by
contributors including John Connell Elfriede Hermann & Wolfgang Kempf and Cecilie Rubow.
Endorsement from Professor Margaret Jolly Australian National University: This exciting volume
offers innovative insights on climate cultures across Oceania. It critically interrogates
Western environmental sciences which fail to fully appreciate Oceanic knowledges and practices.
It reveals how climate science can be both 'a weapon of the weak' and 'an act of symbolic
violence of the powerful'. A compelling series of studies in the Cook islands Fiji Kiribati
Papua New Guinea and Samoa suggest not diverse cultural constructions of 'natural facts' but
processes of knowledge exchange and at best a respectful reciprocity in confronting present
challenges and disturbing future scenarios. 'Home-grown' Pacific discourses and ways of living
emphasise the interconnections of all life on earth and in our cosmos they do not
differentiate between the natural and the moral between environmental and cultural
transformations.These studies evoke the creative agency of Oceanic peoples too often seen as
on the vanguard of victimhood in global representations of climate change and offer
distinctive visions for all humanity in these troubling times.
