On June 24, TRACE Postdoctoral Researcher Wengki Ariando served as a keynote speaker at the International Conference of Environmental Sustainability and Public Health in the Era of Climate Crisis.

Aligning with the conference's central theme of "Local action, global solutions," Wengki presented his research titled: “Decentering Climate Change Narratives in Southeast Asia: A Grassroots Governance Approach.”

This conference provided a vital platform for sharing the TRACE project's ongoing research in Southeast Asia with a broader audience. The event also served to foster international collaboration, helping to build sustainable networks among researchers, educators, activists, and communities worldwide.

Abstract:

Despite the urgent need for climate action, global climate governance remains at an impasse, often failing to produce inclusive, just, and nested adaptive strategies. To address this shortcoming, this presentation introduces TRACE project, a paradigm-shifting framework that decenters dominant climate narratives by amplifying grassroots governance in Southeast Asia. TRACE targets two critical knowledge gaps in current climate discourse: (1) the reductionist view of climate change as the sole driver of environmental adaptation, which overlooks the complex entanglement of everyday livelihoods, clientelist politics, and capitalist intrusions, and (2) the overreliance on technocratic ontologies that conceptually separate nature and society. Drawing on the relational turn in socio-ecological systems, TRACE explores how local institutions and power dynamics shape knowledge reproduction across four Southeast Asian sites. By bridging inter-generational adaptation practices with future strategies through community co-creation, TRACE positions grassroots actors as leaders in regional climate transformation and its evolving narrative.

Further Information: Learn more about the conference here