Biography
Dakota Ashley Limón is a Ph.D. candidate and teaching fellow in Ecology, Spirituality, and Religion at San Francisco’s California Institute of Integral Studies. Her research interests include ecological anthropology and ethnoecology, focusing on the sociocultural and religious interfaces of geographical change and human displacement in the context of climate change.
Paper Abstract
Climate displacement disrupts longstanding relationships between place, cultural identity, and the religious and spiritual traditions of a region. Since religious traditions assume a pivotal role in societies’ adaptive capacity and overall ecological health, it is important to understand if and how they evolve as humans migrate or become forcibly displaced from their land and communities in the face of climate pressures. This investigation explores themes of generational place attachment, kincentricity, applied traditional knowledge, and other human-nature entanglements that inform or are informed by the religious and spiritual traditions of Oceania. It includes how these themes demonstrate understandings of the environment and environmental changes, enhancing the Pacific community’s adaptive capacity to withstand upheaval while maintaining the integrity of their lifeways amid climate-induced changes. Lastly, it illuminates the ways in which the religious and spiritual traditions of Oceania influence climate mitigation and migration efforts through case studies in the Pacific.