100th Anniversary Lecture with Farhana Sultana

Enjoy a free catered lunch, a presentation by alum Farhana Sultana (PhD '07) with the Geography and the Environment Department at Syracuse University, and conversation with students, staff, and faculty from the Department of Geography, Environment & Society. Lunch will be available starting at 12:30 p.m. and Dr. Sultana will present from 1:00 to 2:00 p.m.. RSVP by Monday, October 27 at noon. 

Abstract 

Amidst growing ecological crises and climate-influenced worsening disasters and escalating insecurities globally, the need to confront systems that perpetuate and exacerbate impacts appears to be a unanimous global desire. Yet that is not necessarily the case. Climate coloniality disrupts simplistic narratives of climate justice or the understanding of what just global futures could be. Climate coloniality reproduces the hauntings of colonialism and imperialism, thereby complicating climate politics, governance, and responses at global and local scales. This requires decolonizing both epistemic violences and material outcomes for meaningful justice. This talk will highlight how colonial legacies contribute to epistemic injustices by marginalizing Indigenous and Global South voices in climate knowledge production and policymaking. This exclusion not only weakens proposed solutions but also perpetuates incomplete narratives that overlook the complexities of climate impacts. Repairing of epistemic injustices is crucial for effective climate action and convivial futures that meets the needs of those most affected.

About the Speaker

Dr. Farhana Sultana is Professor in the Department of Geography and the Environment at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs of Syracuse University, where she is also a research director (Environment) in the Program for the Advancement of Research on Conflicts and Collaboration (PARCC), and affiliated with a number of departments and programs. 

Dr. Sultana is an internationally recognized and award-winning interdisciplinary scholar, speaker, educator, and author whose work spans fields of political ecology, water governance, climate justice, anti-colonial politics, sustainable development, decolonizing knowledge, and transforming systems, and South Asia. Prior to joining Syracuse, she taught at King’s College London and worked at United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). 

Author of over a hundred publications, her books include Confronting Climate Coloniality: Decolonizing Pathways for Climate Justice (2024), Water Politics: Governance, Justice, and the Right to Water (2020), Eating, Drinking: Surviving (2016), and The Right to Water: Politics, Governance and Social Struggles (2012). Dr Sultana’s work has been highlighted in Nature, New York Times, BBC, MIT Technology Review, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, DW news, and many other outlets. She serves on the advisory boards of numerous journals, organizations, and advocacy groups. 

Dr. Sultana graduated cum laude from Princeton University (in geosciences and environmental studies) and obtained her master's and PhD (in geography) from the University of Minnesota, where she was a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellow.