Dr. Jess Pasisi

Dr. Jess Pasisi is a climate change researcher who hopes that her research will build a platform to broaden the conversation among academics working on climate change in the Pacific and to eventually recognise the agency of Pacific people at a grassroots level.

“In the age of climate change, it cannot be clearer that when Indigenous people don’t have control in the relationship they have with their land and bodies of water, ultimately the health of the planet is put at risk.”

Researching at Waikato university, she says that some of the current colonial representations of climate change in the Pacific are obscuring Pacific voices and failing to recognise the importance of Indigenous knowledge in the fight against the changing climate.

Her passion for Indigenous voices to be heard at a significant level within the research world is what pushes her to create, research and publish work that help elevate these voices to show that we are doin the work at a grassroots level.

Dr Pasisi says mainstream media focused on headlines such as, “How to save a sinking island nation” erodes Pacific people’s agency and fails to recognise the work already underway in the Pacific as well as ancestral knowledge that has helped the survival of Pacific people for generations.

“These women’s stories are important and powerful because their insight and culturally specific knowledge has value in grappling with the complex changes caused by climate change.”

Take a look at some of her published work below, which especially focuses on Indigenous women and their unique and strong perspective on climate change and culture.

https://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10289/13380/thesis.pd