Ocean Weaves: Reconfigurations of Climate Justice in Oceania

Abstract

This article engages weaving as a model of feminist decolonial climate justice methodology in Oceania. In particular, it looks to three weaver-activists who use their practices to reclaim the matrixial power of the ocean (as maternal womb and network of relation) in the face of ongoing US occupation in the Pacific: Marshallese poet and climate activist Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner; Hawai‘i-based settler-ally weaver and installation artist Mary Babcock; and Kānaka Maoli sculptor Kaili Chun, also based in Hawai‘i. Each artist begins from a particular positionality in the ongoing open weave of the ocean and uses specific cultural ontologies of weaving and netting to address knots and gaps in climate change imaginaries. These weavers help to articulate important nuances in recent calls for working in solidarity networks at the cultural interface of climate justice activism. Their processes directly address the need for greater emotional and relational capacity across cultural and national divides, across Indigenous and non-Indigenous feminist critiques of colonial-capitalist systems and through inter-connected waters.

Oceans

“…The opening article, ‘Ocean weaves: reconfigurations of climate justice in Oceania’ (2022, this issue) by Jaimey Hamilton Faris, engages with the work of three artist-activists living and working in the Pacific. Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner, Mary Babcock and Kaili Chun use different practices of weaving and work from different positions of power (Indigenous or settler-ally) to articulate feminist decolonial critiques of the US’s historical and ongoing presence and impact in Oceania, and they do so as part of a much wider network of Indigenous and feminist activists using weaving in their climate justice work.…”