Stories of Climate Action

Amidst calls for urgent climate adaptation, this project dwells in the everyday stories of development, infrastructure and dwelling of marginalized urban residents in Mumbai that are often drowned out by the formalized procedures of expert knowledges of climate change action. 

The stories gathered in this project will describe subordinated modalities of praxis; of how urban residents understand climate change and act amidst climate and ecological uncertainty. The PIs propose to put these stories in conversation with ongoing official climate planning processes underway in India and diversely situated publics through several community engagement workshops, an online multimedia exhibition, op-eds and a policy brief, taught course, peer-reviewed articles, conference, and book publication. Together with official, more formalized initiatives, “Stories of Climate Action” promises to produce new paradigms of how the most catastrophic effects of climate change might be mitigated and adapted to in Indian cities in the near future. 

In 2022 the project received major funding from Penn Global. The grant supports 3 co-PIs and 8 fellows conducting research in Mumbai, documenting the nuanced ways in which marginalized populations in Mumbai live in climate changed environments.

In Spring 2024, CASI and EnviroLab hosted a 2-day conference at the University of Pennsylvania. Titled “Stories of Climate Action,” the first day of the event was held at the Kleinman Center and featured research presentations and a discussion of the Mumbai-based research, Sand drew approximately 80 participants from the University and beyond. The second day featured a workshop, where researchers from ten universities across four continents shared their work on the topic. Papers presented at this conference will be key to the production of an edited volume, as well as a special issue submission in FY25.