Evolving Towards a Justice-Centered Framework for Action
Reflections on a Convening
“I really came away a bit blown away by the role we can each play in this work. It provided some extra dots to connect up our work that I didn’t even realise were missing. A different lens to see how we can create links between local community action and big systems thinking ideas”
Event participant working in neighbourhood transformation
A space for collective learning and action
In her work on fractals, adrienne maree brown reminds us that “what we practice at a small scale can reverberate to the largest scale”1. It is with this spirit that we convened a group of almost forty folk in an online session in January, to both participate in and help shape a map of the systems at the intersections of climate and migration.
This first gathering was not about showcasing expertise but about learning together through connection and exploration. We are deeply grateful not only to our speakers Noora Firaq, Denis Kierans and Yumna Kamel, whose lightning talks offered insights and provocation, but to everyone who joined us, shared their perspectives, and participated in the mapping and shaping of this collective effort.
Why a shift from map to framework?
We chose to begin our journey with a systems map as a way of sense-making across complexity, plotting out the different sectors, institutions and types of infrastructure that reinforce - but can potentially also disrupt and reimagine - peoples’ experience of climate justice, migrant justice and racial justice. It was also a way of creating some boundaries around our enquiry which has the potential to be limitless. There is after all already excellent work happening at the climate-migration nexus in the policy and advocacy space at the international level as well as emergent work in-country and in-region around the world.
So our enquiry is almost a foresight practice, inviting an exploration of what a society that centres justice in its approach to climate and migration might look like in the UK. It starts from an understanding that we have a moral, historical, economic, ecological and social duty to anticipate patterns of climate-linked migration, to prepare and to welcome. We believe that to do this well, we need to start organising, building and creating models, precedents, proof of possibility in the here and now. Beyond the theoretical and into the messy space of working together across sectors, siloes and even across divergent world-views.
And still, as we engaged deeper in conversation, our hunch that we needed to evolve from a systems map to a form of organising framework was reinforced. Rather than attempting to map whole complex systems in their overlapping entirety, a framework allows people to see for themselves clear entry points that align with their work. Entry points that might be in grassroots organising, in pioneering new forms of civic infrastructure or in exploring the possibilities that applying a climate-migration lens to your work might unlock together with others.
We know that any transformative, collaborative action is built on relationships and trust cultivated over time. Creating a framework, then, is no silver bullet, but rather an invitation to engage in the work, a tool to weave connections, and a way to link intersecting efforts.
Key themes emerging from the convening
We noticed several key themes surfacing from our discussions. These will shape how we continue to refine and communicate our framework:
1. Climate Justice = Migrant Justice = Racial Justice
There was strong consensus on the centring of climate justice, migrant justice, and racial justice as interwoven struggles. This approach resonated widely and reinforced the thinking and analysis that has gone before us and which we had used as a start point for our mapping.
2. Acknowledging multiple forms of intersectionality
Participants also highlighted the importance of ensuring that all forms of injustice and marginalization are represented, including gender, sexuality, feminism, patriarchy, and disability. These intersections have been implicit in our approach, and we’re now thinking about how we might make these explicit.
3. Recognizing power dynamics and decolonising our approach
We are, alongside many others, working towards a decolonial practice, calling us to address power dynamics within our organizing, recognising the inherent conflict in doing this work whilst working in a fundamentally colonial context. We hold this tension as we engage with existing structures and realities in the here and now. As we seek ways to bridge between current and future systems, we want to be intentional and explicit about what we can learn about climate and migration intersections from all existing forms of knowledge, including ancestral and indigenous knowledge, and lived and living experience. For us this means not only rejecting hegemony, binaries and separation in favour of collaborative complexity, or living in ways that are in balance with our ecology, but also recognising migration as natural adaptation practiced across the planet and all its inhabitants. So, what we are saying is not new, and the insights we surface are built on the wisdom of those who have gone before us. But we need more people to come into dialogue with these ideas. So whilst this work is partly about field-building at these nascent intersections, let’s not intellectualize or professionalize but rather seek to unlearn, learn and re-learn together as we bring together an ever wider group of people, outside of our existing echo chambers.
4. A safe and reciprocal approach to centering the voices of people with lived experience
There was wide agreement on the importance of people with lived experience of intersecting injustices being central to shaping understanding and action in this work. There was also a recognition that this must be done in ways that are safe, reciprocal and meaningful. Our growing platform, including this Substack, affords us the opportunity to share the stories of people with lived experience of overlapping climate, migration, and racial injustices. Ensuring a real clarity of purpose in this work will ensure that we do this in a reciprocal way, ensuring that these lived experiences shape the work rather than tokenize individuals, whilst bringing first-hand insights to new audiences.
5. Mapping themes without reinforcing siloes
As we continue to develop this framework in a way that is accessible and meaningful, especially to those not already engaged in this work, we’re reflecting on whether domain mapping - articulating the potential role of the housing sector, the healthcare sector and so on - risks reinforcing existing silos. Are there alternative ways to represent the work that would feel more inclusive? We want this framework to be an entry point for people across different movements and sectors. Part of our work ahead is figuring out how to communicate these intersections effectively—ensuring the framework is useful to those within the climate and migration sectors, but also to those working in areas that may not yet see their connection to this work.
6. Naming the need to reimagine our economic systems
We’ve touched on the injustices embedded in our current economic systems in previous blogs, but our framework doesn’t yet explicitly name the need to reimagine this system. Until now, we’ve seen these as implicit in our analysis. As we refine this framework, we must explicitly name new forms of economic system, concepts like ‘solidarity economy’2, that prioritise collective well-being over profit, which we must draw on as we all step up to play our part in a justice-centred approach to climate and migration in the years and decades ahead.
What’s Next?
We think the coming months will involve refining the framework further based on our learning so far, exploring and developing engagement pathways to understand how different groups want to connect with us, each other and to this work, and finding ways to do that, rooted in relational practices that build trust as an essential building block towards catalysing new forms of collaboration. Part of this work will include writing and storytelling that helps people both within and beyond the climate and migration sectors see how these issues intersect with their own work and lives.
This work is evolving, and, as ever, we invite you to be part of shaping it. If you have thoughts on any of these themes, or this piece has sparked an idea for a collaboration, do reach out us via Substack, on our LinkedIn page or directly to Julia.
adrienne maree brown, Emergent Strategy
Read more: Solidarity Economy Association and Decolonising Economics