Building Equitable Climate Adaptation Partnerships in the US Caribbean

This book assesses the opportunities and outcomes for shared-action learning, participatory approaches, and university-community partnerships to support climate adaptation and climate justice in the US Caribbean. The authors explore the ways that project-based pedagogies and collaborative research can contribute not only to building climate resilience and social infrastructures, but more broadly to generating new modes of experimental climate creativity knowledge sharing. They investigate the potential in leveraging federal research funding for climate resilience, for experimenting with co-production of knowledge and the move towards greater climate justice through processes of creative collaboration. With a focus on Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, this book seeks to offer insights on how academic researchers can engage in ethical collaborations that will support climate vulnerable communities exercise self-determination, equitable climate adaptation, and place-keeping – rather than displacement.

Sarah Molinari is a cultural anthropologist and Assistant Teaching Professor in the Department of Integrative and Global Studies at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, USA. Sarah’s research examines the politics and lived experiences of the intersecting climate and economic crises in Puerto Rico and the greater Caribbean region. She is a co-founder of the Puerto Rico Syllabus, a digital resource for teaching and learning about Puerto Rico’s debt crisis.

Mimi Sheller is the Inaugural Dean of The Global School at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, USA. An interdisciplinary scholar with contributions in Caribbean Studies and mobilities research, her recent books include Island Futures: Caribbean Survival in the Anthropocene (2020) and Mobility Justice: The Politics of Movement in an Age of Extremes (2018).