Intersectional Climate Justice Beyond the Westphalian Border

Climate change has wrought devastation on communities of color and prompted a global climate migrant crisis. The influx of climate migrants into the United States and the European Union has been met by leaders' lack of a comprehensive political response. Not only are nation-states unprepared to handle increased migration into the polity, but global leaders have also shown reluctance to take effective action to stop the impending climate disasters. In this article, we argue that climate crises and subsequent climate migration exposes the limits of the modern nation-state system. The modern nation-state system’s regulation of political membership through a form of citizenship bound by static geographic, political, and racialized borders in a world of increasing migration and interconnection further marginalizes those most vulnerable to climate change. Using the case studies of the climate crises in Arizona and Puerto Rico, we reckon with the necessity of moving beyond bordered belongings and explore the promise of intersectional coalition-building under Black, Brown, and Indigenous leadership to enact climate solutions in these regions. In Arizona, Black and Indigenous coalitions utilize practices of land stewardship based on Indigenous science to ameliorate the impacts of climate change on vulnerable communities. In Puerto Rico, grassroots mutual aid and autogestión projects engage in efforts to adopt intersectional solidarity organizing approaches to enact food, energy, and water security. We argue that addressing the climate crisis will only be possible through governance networks rooted in Black and Indigenous sovereignties, local community autonomy, and an intersectional politics of solidarity.