Earth Week lecture: 'Imagining Pacific Futures' Thursday
Join the Department of Anthropology and Middle Eastern Cultures and Students for a Sustainable Campus at Mississippi State on Thursday [April 23] at 6 p.m. in the Mitchell Memorial Library auditorium for an Earth Week lecture on "Imagining Pacific Futures: Climate Change, Local Livelihoods and International Environment Rhetorics" presented by Paige West, professor of cultural anthropology at Barnard College and Columbia University.
The Pacific Islands sit in the imagination as tiny jewel-like dots of paradise in the vast blue of the Pacific Ocean. This talk will introduce the audience to the reality of New Ireland in Papua New Guinea -- a “marine province” with hundreds of tiny and a few larger islands.
The 150,000 citizens of New Ireland are on the front lines of global climate change. Over the past 10 years they have been faced with sea level rise, king tides, tsunami threats, coral reef bleaching, beach erosion, and the salinization of their drinking water. This talk offers some of the perspectives on climate change and its mitigation held by the indigenous inhabitants of New Ireland.
If you require special assistance relating to a disability, please contact Madison Poole at 662-325-8632 or at mpoole@international.msstate.edu.
