5th ISA Forum of Sociology (6-11 July 2025)

In the Anthropocene era as a contemporary epoch of unprecedented human-caused environmental precarity and suffering, there is an increasing interest in justice approaches that are able to address and tackle environmental, epistemic and social inequalities. In recent years, it has been acknowledged that indigenous communities are arbiters of planetary health and climate justice as they have an interdependent relationship with their ecosystems and do follow traditional lifeways. While they protect a majority of biodiversity, their knowledge and approaches toward climate resilience are often marginalized in academic spheres. This panel explores critical insights and indigenous perspectives on climate justice and resilience, while addressing the foundational and persisting impacts of enslavement and genocidal settler colonial violence in precipitating the Anthropocene. It also focuses on the intersections of Indigenous health, sovereignty and self-determination in the midst of ongoing land dispossession and extractive violence.

Potential questions:

• How do we make the academic community aware that the Indigenous activism and knowledge is so important to the conservation of world’s biodiversity and ultimately sustainability.
• As non-Indigenous university academics, how can we best incorporate Indigenous knowledge and practices in a respectful way into a course to increase student awareness?
• How can support more indigenous voices in academia?