Caribbean as method: Black geographies and the struggles of West Papua

Presentation Caribbean as method: Black geographies and the struggles of West Papua, by Dr. Hatib Kadir (KITLV)

Hatib A. Kadir is an environmental humanities researcher whose work explores ecological crises in peripheral regions. For the past seven years, he has conducted research across Eastern Indonesia, from Maluku to West Papua, focusing on the Anthropocene, human–nonhuman relations, and ecological disruptions shaped by extractive industries, infrastructure, settler colonialism, and invasive species.

His current project brings Black geography into dialogue with the Pacific, asking how black geography theories rooted in the Caribbean and the US—emphasizing oppression, resistance, and sovereignty—might illuminate West Papua’s histories of racialized dispossession and Indigenous struggle, and opening new perspectives on Black life in underexplored Pacific contexts.