The Caribbean Food for Climate Justice Research Group: A Tale of Three Projects with Marisa Wilson

The School of the Environment and the Centre for Caribbean Studies invite you to join us for 'The Caribbean Food for Climate Justice Research Group: A Tale of Three Projects' with Marisa Wilson, a Senior Lecturer in Critical Human Geography at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.

The talk will take place on Monday, May 5th, 2025, from 10:30 AM to 12:00 PM in ES 1042 (5 Bancroft Avenue, Toronto, ON M5S 3J1) and virtually on Zoom (meeting details sent to participants the week of event).

Registration is required.

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Speaker Bio

Dr Wilson has a D.Phil. in Social and Cultural Anthropology from the University of Oxford, UK (2009), and is currently a Senior Lecturer in Critical Human Geography at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. As a critical food geographer, Dr Wilson uses ethnographic, oral history, archival, and theatre, music, and other arts-based methods to co-develop communities of practice around food and climate justice in the Caribbean. Her interdisciplinary, collaborative research in Cuba, Trinidad and Tobago, and Jamaica seeks to increase public understandings of, and alternatives to, colonial and racial capitalist food and seed networks. Her current research focuses on safeguarding Indigenous seed and wild plant heritage for climate adaptation in Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. This major, ESRC-funded ($1.8M) research project will use ethnographic, ethnobotanical, and Indigenous storytelling research to co-develop endogenous seed data governance solutions with and for Indigenous Taíno and Maroon Peoples of Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. 

Seminar Abstract

This talk demonstrates the transformative potential of three collaborative projects I have had the privilege of leading through our Caribbean Food for Climate Justice Research Group (CFCJRG). Formed in 2020, the CFCJRG brings together diverse knowledge holders from across the Caribbean, the UK, and the US, including Indigenous scholar-activists, educators, artists, academics, and young people from the region-wide organisation, the Caribbean Youth Environment Network (CYEN). Our work responds to the pressing need for fundamental research into the kinds of agricultural, botanical, culinary, and climatic ‘data’ that matter to Black and Indigenous Caribbean communities of the Caribbean. While highly affected by climate change, these communities have been under-represented in global and national food, seed, and climate policy, and in climate-related research carried out in privileged spaces of the colonial academy. Funded by the Arts and Humanities and Economic and Social Research Councils (UKRI), all three projects showcased here – Recipes for Resilience (2021-2022), Teaching Climate Justice through Ancestral Plant Heritage (2022-2024), and Indigenous Seed Data Sovereignty for Climate Adaptation (2025-2027) – highlight the crucial role of decolonial and arts-led research for Indigenous and African Caribbean struggles for recognition, self-determination, and what I call ‘climate survivance.’ Throughout the talk, I demonstrate concrete strategies we have used to decolonise our research practice while showcasing some of our artistic outputs, including a Soca song (‘Food and Resistance for Climate Resilience’), and an illustrated children’s cookbook for Jamaica’s National School Gardening Programme (Recipes for Climate Justice). By breaking down the barriers of what ‘research’ is and who ‘researchers’ can be, our projects are carving out Black and Indigenous Caribbean-led pathways towards just ecological futures.