Posted on December 09, 2024
The Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship at the University of Pretoria organised a seminar on “Localising Justice in Africa’s Just Transition on the 28th of November 2024. The seminar, organised as part of the Engaging Environmental Publics Seminar series, represents the Centre’s public-facing engagement with the sociopolitical impacts of climate change, the question of environmental justice, and the place of local communities in Just Transition projects on the African continent. It is informed by a desire to situate local epistemologies at the forefront of this all-important drive to reduce carbon emissions. This requires a careful reflection on and attentiveness to localised ideas of justice and transition, especially as they relate to communities with a burden of historical violence and trauma, which renders them even more precarious in the face of climate change. The event featured two speakers: Dr Ronald Tombe from Kisii University in Kenya, and Dr Tamuka Chekero from the Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship, University of Pretoria.
Dr. Ronald Tombe’s talk, “AI and Digital Pathways for Social and Environmental Justice: Advancing Equity and Resilience in Africa’s Just Transitions”, addressed the role of technology in Africa’s Just transition, particularly, the need for localised technological solutions that will enable African communities to resiliently respond to the challenges of transition programs, and the fourth industrial revolution. This requires a transdisciplinary approach capable of addressing the desires and sociopolitical realities of local communities. He is convinced that the AI revolution is central to this process, and as such, he suggests an enthusiastic embrace of the opportunities this offers.
Dr. Tamuka Chekero’s presentation, “Nothing for the Community without the Community: A Bottom-Up Approach to Justice in the Just Transition”, addressed the importance of localised ideas of justice in shaping Africa’s Just Transition. Through a textured operationalisation of terms such as ‘bottom-up’ and ‘consulting’ he showed that for just transition programs to be successful, the distinct quotidian experiences, the cultural and sociopolitical positions of local communities should be centred in the debates on and solutions to the challenges of just transition. This would position local communities as important interlocutors in the process of shaping a smooth transition to ecologically sensitive modes of livelihood that do not leave another trail of exploited bodies and lives in its wake.
The thoughtful questions and reflections that followed the presentations reflected both the brilliance of the talks and the weightiness of the issues at the centre of deliberations. Some of the questions that emerged include: How do we account for the voices and desires of Indigenous communities in formulating policies for just transition? In the face of energy poverty which plagues many African countries, how do we achieve a just transition that sustainably addresses the needs of local communities? How do we build trust with communities with long histories of marginalization, abandonment and unkept promises? Questions were also raised on the extractive underbelly of the AI revolution, and the role of capitalism and its addiction to rapid growth, which needs extraction to continue its march towards ‘progress’.
Key takeaways
Interdisciplinary methodologies should be adopted to address the question of justice and equity in Africa’s just transition. To centre indigenous knowledge systems and make them serviceable in the just transition debates, African countries should invest in creating and managing digital archives of local epistemologies. There is a need to invest and participate in the AI revolution, which will certainly play a key role in driving global transition programs; however, this should be done to create a syncretic relationship between indigenous epistemologies and artificial intelligence.
A bottom-up approach should be adopted in thinking about what justice means for local communities and for making sense of what needs to be done. This demands careful reflection on how axes of belonging such as gender, class, and location will generate distinct encounters with rapid change. African scholars and key stakeholders must critically question the forms of extractive violence that act as caryatid for the celebrated idea of green transition.
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