Climate Justice in Eastern Africa: A Tale of Two Books

This seminar centers climate justice in Eastern Africa through insights from two new edited volumes: Climate Justice in Action: Activism and Adaptation in Eastern Africa (Bristol University Press, 2026) and Intersectional Climate Justice in Eastern Africa (Bloomsbury, 2025).

Together, these books offer a rich, grounded, and critically engaged account of how climate change is lived, contested, and addressed across one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable regions.

Climate Justice in Action foregrounds activism, adaptation, and resistance, amplifying community voices and intersectional approaches that link environmental sustainability with struggles against social inequality.

Through diverse case studies spanning Uganda, Kenya, Somalia, Zimbabwe, Sudan, and beyond, it highlights local direct action, innovation and policy change in response to erratic weather, displacement, disasters, and food and energy insecurity. Intersectional Climate Justice in Eastern Africa deepens this analysis by examining how climate change intersects with gender, conflict, land rights, energy poverty, and knowledge production.

Across seventeen chapters, it brings together researchers, activists, and creatives - many based in the region - to centre marginalised perspectives, Indigenous knowledges, and innovative, decolonial methodologies.

The seminar reflects on what these two books reveal about climate justice in Eastern Africa today, and what the region can teach us about confronting global climate inequalities.

Chair and speakers

Chair: Professor Andrea Schapper, University of Stirling

Speakers 

• Katie McQuaid is Associate Professor of Gender and Climate at the University of Leeds, UK.
• Susan Nanduddu is Executive Director of the African Centre for Trade and Development, Uganda.
• Elvin Nyukuri is a Senior Lecturer in Environmental Governance and Policy at the University of Nairobi, Kenya.
• Admire Mare is Associate Professor and Head of Department of Communication and Media at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa.
• Neil J. W. Crawford is Lecturer in International Politics and Public Policy at the University of Stirling, UK.