International Conference “Adaptation and Resilience to Climatic and Environmental Changes in the Indian Ocean World”
As part of the partnership on “Appraising risk, past and present” , the Indian Ocean World Centre at McGill University hosted an online conference from the 25-27th of May 2022, themed ‘Adaptation and Resilience to Climatic and Environmental Changes in the Indian Ocean World, Past to Present.’ Prior to this conference, Dr Philip Gooding and Dr Julie Babin organised a workshop addressing primarily the early career researchers involved in the partnership. This interactive workshop allowed participants to interact with archival material. Through group exercises using late-nineteenth-century eastern Africa as a case study, we were able to learn how to index archival materials relating to rainfall in the Indian Ocean World. In a presentation, Professor Christopher Low gave a presentation on “Liquid Histories of Climate Risk and Adaptation in the Anthropocene Arabia”. This workshop thus set an introduction to the themes and methods that were explored in the course of the conference. To kick off the conference, the newly appointed chair of History of the Anthropocene at the University of Zurich Professor Debjani Bhattacharyya gave a key note on “Logistics of Turbulence: Climate History from the Indian Ocean.” Overall, the conference explored alternative ways of thinking about climatic and environmental change based on the ongoing research within the partnership. While we hope that the next partnership meeting will be held in presence again, the conference also served as a great networking opportunity for collaborations across disciplines.
If you are interested to learn more about the workshop, please find the two sessions here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLttNWGRgTwqBAmx7cBd70OzGBovq_817D
Everjoy Chiimba
