Wednesday, February 04, 2026
Climate justice in digital spaces across transnational margins paper presentation
It was a late night, but I was very pleased to present at paper at the Digital Marginality & Plural Subjectivities conference hosted by the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, at the University of Edinburgh. My thanks to the organisers for all their work to draw together a 3 day hybrid conference.
After several experiences of presenting in the conference room at Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, it was quite different to be online and seeing the room digitally. But very appropriate for a conference titled Digital Marginality.
I was presenting in a panel with presenters researching digital solidarity with Papua, Māori responses to AI and the ethics of digital representations of indigenous cultures.
My paper, titled “Climate justice and the performing of prayer in digital spaces across transnational margins,” explored the visual nature of the 2024 Tuākoi ‘Lei Declaration emerging from the 2024 Pacific Conference of Churches gathering. I placed the visual representation of kneeling for prayer alongside other visual images, from COP in 2021 and CHOGM in 2024, and used visual grammar analysis to reflect on the role of prayer in digital activism and what that means for how the West understands climate justice and digital activism. (The full paper proposal is here).
The followup questions were valuable and give shape to further work I might want to do turning the presentation into some writing.
- is the kneeling in the 2024 Tuākoi ‘Lei Declaration an act of solidarity in that moment, or are there other spiritual and theological dynamics that emerge over time including through the digital sharing?
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how were the digital images shared? Did they ripple out or were they kept within closed networks? do we need to account for different lifecycles and uses of digital images?
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what are the complexities involved in sharing contextual actions on global digital platforms? how are Pacific voices heard in the West?
The presentation builds on my IASH Research Fellowship in 2024 into grassroots digital activism. Specifically it is the 5th conference presentation using visual grammar analysis to think theologically about online visual images. I have also written a book chapter and two journal articles. Based on the feedback from last night, there could well be a third article.
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