About the Book
Intersectional Climate Justice in Eastern Africa considers the interconnections between climate change and a number of intersecting socio-economic and political factors in one of the world's most climate vulnerable regions. The book's focus on Eastern Africa provides an important and timely opportunity to look at the diversity of lived realities of the climate crisis today, offering a key place to learn from and explore questions relating to the inherent structural inequalities of climate change globally.
Over seventeen chapters, the book examines issues including diverse and gendered experiences of flash floods in Somalia and South Sudan, displacement, conflict and land rights in Burundi, energy poverty in Malawi, experimental fiction and urban soundscapes in Uganda, and Indigenous rights and knowledges in Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and from across the region. Throughout, it centres the complex politics of knowledge production, foregrounding frequently marginalized voices and embracing creative methodologies and expression.
The book brings together a community of researchers, activists, and creatives, with the majority based in the region, thus making an important contribution to decolonizing climate literature and foregrounding African knowledges on global challenges.
The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the Bloomsbury Open Collections Library Collective.
Table of Contents:
1. Foreword (Angelique Umutesi, Bekumba Adolf, Gideon Pirandoni, Ineza Umuhoza Grace, Jean-Paul Bya'undaombe, Lamis Elkhatieb, Never Mujere, Nicolas Gaulin, Samuel Okorie)
2. Introduction: Centring Eastern Africa in the Climate Crisis (Katie McQuaid, Neil J. W. Crawford, Susan Nanddudu, and Elvin Nyukuri)
3. Land Use, Conflict, Re/Displacement, and Post-Conflict Histories in Burundi (Ngambouk Vitalis Pemunta, and Maurine Ekun Nyok)
4. Haweenku aad beey u adkeystaan (women endure a lot): The Impacts of Flash Floods on Women and Girls in Qardho District, Somalia (Sahra Ahmed Koshin)
5. Sound and Situated Knowledge in Entebbe's Urban Wetland Borderlands (Michael Roberts and Daniel Lumonya)
6. Breaking Barriers: Unravelling the Climate Justice Struggles of Maasai Women and Girls in Tanzania (Emmanuel Ole Kileli, Monica Kurumbe, Sophia Carodenuto, Katelynne Herchak, and Crystal Tremblay)
7. The Powers that be? Me? (Hita Unnikrishnan)
8. Beyond Fortresses: Rethinking Conservation and Upholding Indigenous Peoples' Rights (Julia Basile, Elsa Jarkhedian, Silvia Ottinetti, and Nicolás Süssmann Herrán)
9. The Legacy of Colonialism, Present-day Climate Injustice: The Experiences and Knowledge of San Communities in Tsholotsho, Western Zimbabwe (Douglas Nyathi, Joram Ndlovu, Admire Mare, and Munyaradzi A Dzvimbo)
10. There Are Other Roads (Davina Philomena Kawuma)
11. Rural Women and the Overlapping Climate and Energy Injustices in Malawi: An Intersectional Feminist Overview (Eilidh Watson Stanfield and Ethel Chinoko)
12. Rural Women, Climate Change and Information Ecosystems in Kenya (Silas Oriaso Odongo, Jacinta Mwende Maweu, Chris Paterson, Lata Narayanaswamy, and Jasmin Surm)
13. 'We let the blood flow': Flooding, Health, and Overlapping Crisis as Experienced by South Sudanese Women (Sneha Krishnan, Philomena Wambui, and Nitesh Lohan)
14. Chair in Entebbe / Entebbe E'Ntebbe (Daphine Arinda)
15. Queer Diffabilities in Uganda: Lived Experiences of Intersectional Complexity and the Urban Climate Crisis (Katie McQuaid and Neil J. W. Crawford)
16. The Covid-19, Equity, and Climate Change Nexus: The Case of the East African Region (Joanes Atela, Leah Aoko Otieno, Elvin Nyukuri, and Florence Onyango)
17. Climate change, migration and displacement: Considering psychosocial impacts in Uganda (Abbas Mugisha and Sabiti Makara)
Index
About the Author :
Neil J.W. Crawford is a Lecturer in International Politics and Public Policy at the University of Stirling, UK.
Susan Nanduddu is the Executive Director of the African Centre for Trade and Development, Uganda.
Katie McQuaid is an Associate Professor of Gender and Climate at the University of Leeds, UK.
Elvin Nyukuri is a Senior Lecturer in Environmental Governance and Policy at the University of Nairobi, Kenya.
Review :
Intersectional Climate Justice in Eastern Africa is a vital resource for understanding climate vulnerability and justice, both in Eastern Africa and globally. By centering the lived realities of one of the world's most climate-vulnerable regions, this book exposes the deep structural inequalities that shape how communities experience environmental crises. By bridging theory and practice, the book redefines climate justice through an African lens, essential for scholars, policymakers, and activists committed to inclusive climate action. A decolonial triumph and a call to listen, especially to those most affected.
This book is boldly unconventional – containing contributions by academics and activists that are interspersed with creative pieces, privileging voices from the Eastern African region, and foregrounding the embodied and real-life experiences of climate change by diverse local communities. Doing so, it exemplifies the new modes of knowledge production, or better: co-production, required in the face of the current climate crisis: African-centred, pluriversal, transdisciplinary, inclusive and transformational. Together, the contributions demonstrate passionately and urgently the need for, and value of, an intersectional approach to climate justice.
This is a rare and empirically rich edited collection using intersectionality as an analytical lens and offering innovative responses to the complexities of climate injustice. Based on ethnographic, visual and artistic methodologies, it is unique in raising African voices - foregrounding local experiences, perspectives and justice approaches. A must-read for everyone interested in the emerging field of intersectional climate justice.
Intersectional Climate Justice in Eastern Africa is a terrific and deeply insightful book! A spark of fresh reflection of climate justice concept in the real context of Eastern Africa with flawless specimens from across the Majority World and beyond. A collection of empirical research evidence-based reports that highlights surging inequalities and vulnerability worsened by climate injustice, the book is a bold call to all actors across the spectrum to rethink individual actions, legal and policy frameworks on top of contribution of civil society for most appropriate climate responses. The work greatly benefits from the centring of activist voices from the region.
This book powerfully illustrates two key dimensions of climate justice. First, that local people facing the brunt of the climate crisis hold knowledge, ideas, and solutions rooted in lived experience - wisdom that must inform policy and practice. Second, that equitable access to and governance of healthy ecosystems by marginalized groups offers the most just, feasible, and sustainable path to climate resilience - because it centers basic human rights. Intersectional Climate Justice in Eastern Africa is a vital and timely contribution that affirms the power of local leadership and the urgency of justice-driven climate action.
This is an incredibly exciting and unique compilation of research, commentary and art, exploring intersectional climate justice from a remarkable range of researchers, practitioners and artists, predominantly East African voices. The sheer breadth of the topics explored through different lenses provides one, whether seasoned and experienced or early in their career, with deep insights and understanding of the global crises, the links between climate change and social justice, and issues of ethnicity, colonialism, age, gender, sexuality, citizenship, cultures, poverty and healthcare, among others. This timely, critically important book has something for everyone to explore, learn from and build upon.
Intersectional Climate Justice in Eastern Africa is a vital and timely contribution to climate discourse. It powerfully illuminates how gender, class, ethnicity, and governance intersect with environmental vulnerability in one of the world's most affected regions. Grounded in local realities and rich in analysis, the book challenges one-size-fits-all climate solutions and advocates for inclusive, context-specific approaches. Essential reading for policymakers, activists, and scholars seeking equitable climate action rooted in justice and resilience.
Often when people think of academic writing, they think impenetrable. This book is not that. Intersectional Climate Justice in Eastern Africa is a powerful testament to the region's resilience and ingenuity. By centering marginalised voices and African perspectives, it reframes global climate discourse with both urgency and hope. It not only amplifies the voices of youth activists but also demonstrates that climate knowledge takes many forms. This is a book that deserves to be read across the region and beyond.
Intersectional Climate Justice in Eastern Africa is a landmark contribution to climate literature, urgent, expansive, and deeply grounded. By exploring the climate crisis through the intersecting lenses of gender, displacement, energy access, land rights, and Indigenous knowledge, this volume powerfully illuminates the structural inequalities embedded in global climate discourse. Its regional focus on Eastern Africa reveals the rich diversity of lived experiences and offers transformative insights into climate justice. With voices from scholars, activists, and artists, many rooted in the region, the book not only decolonizes climate narratives but reimagines the methodologies we use to understand them. A must-read for anyone committed to climate justice, equity, and epistemic transformation.
Whether you are female, Indigenous, poor, gay, a migrant, a child, a senior, differently-abled, a rural dweller, a slum-dweller, or any combination, your specific identity and social position matter very much with regard to your ability to survive climate-related disasters. This is clearly a justice issue, and it has huge economic and socio-political implications. In this welcome open-access book, an impressive group of activist African scholars with lived experience of climate injustices share detailed, specific examples of how climate chaos produces mounting and intersectional impacts across Eastern Africa, providing the focus and granularity needed for broad understanding and effective policy.
The strive of this book, to bring together a community of researchers, activists, and creatives, underscores the efforts to bring to the fore voices of the most impacted and transform the complex politics of knowledge production, and ultimately, its use. This book is a live challenge to all to explore appropriate channels to center outcomes in the policy process as well as new methodological approaches. It will serve as a useful tool for those advocating for climate justice in Eastern Africa and fighting with communities at the frontline of the climate crisis.
This book arrives at a time when both climate policy and research urgently need to better understand how intersecting identities – gender, ethnicity, age, disability, and sexuality – shape lived experiences of climate change. From colonial legacies to patriarchal norms, the vulnerabilities of marginalised communities in Eastern Africa have been understudied. The contributors to this book not only amplify voices from this often-overlooked region but also provide a much-needed demonstration of how intersectionality can be practiced as a methodology. This book underscores that intersectionality is a pathway to inclusivity in climate policy and research, and is essential reading for anyone seeking grounded approaches for applying the concept in climate-related work
