Q&A: Climate Hub Grantee on Lessons Learned
Teachers College fellow OreOluwa Badaki discusses her research project "Amplifying Climate Change Education and Communication in Brazil."
OreOluwa Badaki is a postdoctoral fellow at Teachers College, Columbia University and a recipient of one of the inaugural Climate Hub Rio Grants in 2023. Bridging research in critical literacy studies, multimodal scholarship and environmental justice, she examined how power moves through bodies and spaces within food and land systems. As a writer, movement practitioner, and educator, Badaki worked with youth and communities to explore environmental justice through the creative and performing arts. She shared her experiences in this interview conducted near the end of her project in Brazil.
Question: Can you provide an overview of your research project and its main objectives?
Answer: My broader research project is on the role of storytelling within environmental education. Specifically, I use the creative and performing arts to explore the politics of food and land systems within a changing climate. Research in climate education and communications shows that more knowledge about climate change doesn’t always lead to more action, and can actually lead instead to hopelessness, lethargy, or distress. Additionally, more information about climate change doesn’t necessarily do anything to address injustices baked into our socio ecological systems. My work aims to address these gaps by highlighting more critical, creative, and collective approaches to teaching and learning about food and land systems.
Q: What motivated you to choose Brazil as the location for your research?
A: I was born in Nigeria and my family moved to the US when I was very young. As a Diasporic African, who works primarily with African Diasporic youth and communities, I think Brazil is a crucial place for understanding our histories and contemporary realities. Brazil is home to one of the largest populations of African peoples outside of the African continent. This isn’t a surprise given that Brazil reportedly imported nearly half of the enslaved peoples taken from Africa, and was one of the last countries to abolish slavery.
More contemporary Brazil has been the site of some powerful examples of environmental activism and has some of the world’s greatest biodiversity. Yet Brazil also has some of the highest rates of murder of Indigenous and environmental activists. This complex combination of characteristics gives Brazil a unique role in helping us understand how we got to where we are in terms of the climate crisis, and what we need to do about it.
Q: Could you share some insights into the specific study area or topic you focused on during your research in Brazil?
![OreOluwa Badaki with a mortar and pestle in the flour house of one of the farms she visited. woman with mortar and pestle](/sites/default/files/styles/cu_crop/public/content/NYC/meeting-a-mortrar-and-pestle-in-Arapixuna%2C-Para%CC%81-%281%29.jpg?itok=aL_dwqWd)
A: I’m interested in exploring African Diasporic foodways (behaviors and beliefs around producing, distributing, and consuming food) in Brazil, and the role that stories related to these foodways can play in climate/environmental education. I think a better understanding of the ways that Afro-Brazilian communities have remembered and reimagined these foodways can teach us a lot about the politics of food and land in a changing climate.
Q: What inspired you to explore African Diasporic foodways within Brazil's climate education and communication context?
A: Recent analyses attribute at least a third of global greenhouse gas emissions to industrial agriculture, and with Brazil being one of the world’s largest exporters of commercial crops, I think a critical understanding of foodways and food systems in Brazil is warranted. I’m interested in the role that storytelling rooted in history, ancestry, and diaspora can play in understanding and addressing the issues within food systems, in Brazil and globally, that perpetuate climate catastrophe and injustice.
Q: In what ways do you think these intersections can enhance cultural understanding and appreciation of sustainable practices from local communities?
A: I think it depends on whose culture and whose understanding we are talking about. Some communities have understood these intersections for generations, and some are just getting here or maybe just forgot along the way. While I think understanding diverse stories, perspectives and practices has wide-reaching benefits, I think it’s also important for those who are newer to these understandings to take heed of the work that has come before, to give credit where credit is due, and to return resources where resources are due.
Q: Can you share any specific examples or instances from your exploration of African Diasporic foodways?
A: The first thing that comes to mind is a research trip to Pará, where I got to hear from women growers practicing agroecology. At one of the farms we visited, there was a mortar and pestle in the flour house. It looked similar to the ones my aunts, sisters, and mother would gather around to pound yam, back in Nigeria. In my memories, pounding yam was almost always done outside amidst circles of banter and laughter. Voices mingled with the rhythmic pounding that yielded the yams just the right consistency of soft and smooth.
Even though these memories are personal to me, they are part of a wider social fabric. Judyth Carney’s work on African ecological and botanical legacies, and the research she did in Pará and other places in Northeastern Brazil, tells the story of how enslaved West Africans (and specifically, enslaved women) brought over agricultural knowledge and tools… like the mortar and pestle. It was really special to reflect on the legacies of these types of food and agricultural traditions with women who are at the frontlines of some most pressing climate issues (e.g. land grabs, water and soil acidification, drought, etc.) to date.
Q: How do you envision the implications of these intersections for broader climate education, both within Brazil and on a global scale?
A: During my stay, I learned more about how Afro-Brazilian and Indigenous activists, artists, educators, and scholars in Brazil have been working for generations to tell more dynamic and critical stories about our environment and about our changing climate. I hope to contribute to these stories, as they bring to life the social, political, and historical dimensions often ignored by technocratic solutions to climate change. They also foreground the importance of the past and present within climate narratives that often over-emphasize the future. The communities telling these stories are often made to be the most vulnerable in the face of climate change, so it only makes sense for climate education and communication initiatives invested in justice and equity to center and uplift their perspectives.
Q: What partnerships or collaborations have been crucial to the success of your project, particularly in the realms of climate education, cultural preservation, and community engagement?
A: Initially, I came to Brazil specifically to work with two researchers I have been in conversation with for a while now: Thais Rosa Pinheiro is a community-based researcher and leader specializing in Afro-Diasporic culture and community mobilization within quilombolas and traditional communities, and Inny Accioly is a Professor of Education and activist scholar specializing in environmental education and Indigenous and traditional knowledge.
This Rio Global Center grant made it possible for me to see their work first-hand and map out opportunities for collaboration. In addition, thanks to the dedicated efforts of the staff at the Rio Center, I was able to meet with other leaders, researchers, activists, educators, and strategists who have helped me to expand and deepen my understanding of climate education and communication in Brazil.
These include Tainá de Paula and some of her team at the Secretaria Municipal de Meio Ambiente e Clima, members of the Jovens Negociadores Pelo Clima program, and teams at the Centro de Operações Rio, Instituto Ibiripatanga, and Instituto Municipal de Urbanismo Pereira Passos. I learned so much about the histories and contemporary politics of food, land, climate, and education during these conversations. I also got a sense of how multifaceted these issues are and how hard people have been working to address them. Lots of gratitude to everyone who took time out of their incredibly demanding schedules to speak and work with me, and to the staff at the Rio Center for helping to make these connections possible.
![OreOluwa Badaki with Tainá de Paula, the Municipal Secretariat of Climate and Environment in Rio, and her team. the Municipal Secretariat of Climate and Environment in Rio.](/sites/default/files/styles/cu_crop/public/content/NYC/IMG-20240117-WA0009-%281%29.jpg?itok=QvRsglsu)
Q: Can you share some highlights of your overall experience in Brazil? Any particularly memorable moments?
A: The opportunities I got to connect with people through dance were most memorable for me, and I was fortunate to get to do that through events like samba classes, capoeira and jongo rodas, and forró parties. I see dance playing a role in my research as well, as the connections between dance and foodways within Afro-Brazilian communities is strong.
When I was in Salvador de Bahia, for example, I visited the Museu da Gastronomia Baiana, Museu da Baiana, as well as some Candomblé houses and festivals. This helped paint a more vivid picture of how African cosmologies have united both dance and food traditions for cultural survival across centuries. I also got a chance to see Balé Folclórico da Bahia and take dance classes with Afro-Brazilian choreographers, who are showing new ways contemporary practitioners and audiences can also engage with these traditions.
In Rio, I visited the Centro Coreográfico da Cidade do Rio de Janeiro, which is one of the premiere dance research institutions in the country. The first thing I saw there was a tribute to Obaluaê (or Omolu) who is the Orisha (or deity) associated with both disease and healing. I learned that 2024 in Brazil is the year of Obaluaê (as well as another Orisha called Exu), and that Obaluaê’s traditional dances and food offerings are connected to notions of earthiness, grain, struggle, and rootedness. These examples are, of course, just the tip of the iceberg, but they are indicative of the types of possible pathways for exploring the connection between African Diasporic food and dance traditions.
![OreOluwa Badaki during her visit to the Rio Operations Center, an institution dedicated to monitoring and integrating public actions aimed at mitigating the impact of climate-related events. woman in Rio Operations Center](/sites/default/files/styles/cu_crop/public/content/NYC/IMG-20240117-WA0008.jpg?itok=DsGPvz7c)
Q: Were there any unexpected findings or surprises that emerged during your research process in Brazil? Can you share any anecdotes from your time here that significantly influenced your research journey?
A: It’s probably too early to talk findings, but something that I found motivating was how tapped into issues of justice and equity many of the folks I talked with were, especially the young people. I mentioned I got to meet with some of the young people involved in the Jovens Negociadores Pelo Clima program, specifically Beatriz, Gaio, João, and Thaynara. One of the things I asked them was what they might have wanted to be doing if they didn’t feel like they needed to fight for climate justice.
A big concern in climate education is the undue stress and responsibility often put on young people to save the future. While it’s clear that youth voices are a crucial part of climate movements, the fact that many young people feel compelled to be part of this work because there is no future without it means that in some ways they are being robbed of their choice, agency…and their youth. So I wanted to hear what these young climate negotiators would choose to do if they didn’t feel like their futures were at stake.
One of the things I heard was that even if it wasn’t climate justice, they would still be pursuing justice in other ways. They talked about how their families and their communities brought them up to always notice what is happening in their social and natural environments and advocate for what is right, no matter the issue. This was really striking to me, and yet another reminder of how the future they are fighting for is necessary even if climate change wasn’t happening or not. But climate change is definitely happening though…and the group did indeed talk about the ways this work has taken a toll on their health and wellbeing, about the need for celebration and joy within the movement, and about the need for those who are most responsible to take accountability and stop putting the onus on them.
Q: How do you plan to disseminate the results of your research, and do you see any potential applications or implications of your findings?
A: My research tends to take the form of participatory and performance ethnography, meaning I work with communities to understand the social significance of performance traditions and/or to use performance to help communicate our understandings. This is usually an iterative process, in which there is less of a distinction between process and product. I’m not sure yet what this will look like in my work in Brazil, but I look forward to the journey.
Q: Looking back, what advice would you give to researchers planning to conduct similar research projects in Brazil or a similar cultural context?
A: Advice that has been given to me by multiple people I respect, is to find communities already working on the issues I care about and see how my work can support them. This has been especially helpful for me because I think sometimes an infatuation with innovation and newness and making one’s “mark”, in academia as well as in our broader social imaginations, can overshadow the fact that progress always happens as a result of long legacies of collective, and sometimes conflicted, action.
Q: Do you have any book, podcast, newsletter, or documentary recommendations to share? It could be related to your research topic or something entirely different!
A: Ha well, none of the following are documentaries but they are all based on true events: Saint Omer by Alice Diop, Nome by Sana Na H’Hada, and The Last Black Man in San Francisco by Joe Talbot and Jimmie Fails. I think they are all just masterfully told stories about navigating difficult histories. In terms of books, Tsi Tsi Jaji’s Africa in Stereo is currently one of my favorite explorations of African Diasporas, and I just read Jenny Offil’s Weather. I thought it was hilarious and tragic and thoughtful about how climate change can affect people who may not be on the frontlines of climate catastrophe/policy/research but who nonetheless have stakes and a role to play. Also, somewhat unrelated…but I’ve been watching Netflix’s 3 Percent and it seems like a really sweeping and sharp show so far. Plus, it's part of my Portuguese learning journey so it's a win win.