Island(er)s at the Helm end conference:
New perspectives on climate challenges in the (Dutch) Caribbean
New perspectives on climate challenges in the (Dutch) Caribbean
Voices of the coast: Co-creating early warning systems for coastal resilience in Boca St. Michiel
Pédzi Flores-Girigori is department head of the Observations, Forecasting and Warnings Division and management member of the Meteorological Service Curaçao. She holds a master's degree in physics and climate studies from Utrecht University, with a specialisation in astronomy and particle physics.
She also holds a diploma as an operational meteorologist from the Royal Netherlands Air Force. Her work involves capacity building, awareness raising and policy development. Her passion lies in trying to bridge the gap between policymakers and scientists. She has expertise in water, disaster management, climate impacts and adaptation, and sustainable development goals.
Workshop Voices of the coast: Co-creating early warning systems for coastal resilience in Boca St. Michiel, by Pedzi Flores-Girigori, MSc (Meteorological Service Curaçao).
Coastal communities in the Caribbean face increasing threats from climate change. These threats include sea level rise, storm surges, high waves due to breaking swells, heat and heavy rainfall. My experience of working at the Meteorological Department has triggered the impression that top-down early warning systems often fail to reach or resonate with the people most at risk. Women on the other hand are often referred to as being a vulnerable group that must be taken into consideration. My own impression around the subject however suggested that women in Curacao have a strong presence and authority in the informal sphere. Hence I was curious as to whether this is indeed true for the specific case of Boca St. Michiel and whether this could be used as a catalyst for resilience.
My research was an initiative to center community voices, particularly gendered experiences, in redesigning early warning systems that are trusted, actionable, and locally grounded. The key findings of my research are: 1) Hazards are not external threats, they are part of the lived history and identity; 2) Resilience is understood as capability, courage, and cooperation and is linked to a place-based identity; 3) Local knowledge acts as an informal early warning system and 4) Communication is relational and place-based (Trust is embodied in platforms, not impersonal institutions).
My conclusion is that communities are not “lacking” warning systems, they are operating on different epistemologies that institutions don’t see, respect, or integrate. Early warnings don’t fail because of the language used, they fail because they are built on institutional/scientific epistemology that does not integrate the local, embodied ecological epistemology. They do not match how communities actually know, sense and believe risk. The community is not rejecting scientific knowledge, it is rather asserting a different way of knowing. Resilience on the other hand is seen as collective and interdependent, despite different gendered roles.
During this workshop I will push you to reflect on what makes knowledge legitimate in disaster governance, how institutions fail when they ignore place-based cosmologies and finally what design shifts are needed in linguistical, visual and institutional sense. Using an interactive role-based scenario I will try to make you “feel” how institutional early warning systems are misaligned with how coastal communities actually sense, trust, and act on risk.