Worlds Turned Upside Down: Building Optimism, Responsibility and Accountability in Colonial-Settler Societies

Worlds Turned Upside Down: Building Optimism, Responsibility and Accountability in Colonial-Settler Societies

The 2024 Taiwan Geographical Conference occurred amidst overlapping crises at multiple scales, all of which give reasons to fear for the future. Geographers have been at the forefront of scientists providing the tools and data to understand and respond to these crises. This perspective offers a realistic foundation for optimism that rescales and recalibrates notions of both responsibility and accountability to consider what geographers might contribute to transformation of colonial-settler societies, and in the process to become allies to more just, sustainable and equitable futures for our shared human and more-than-human settings. Drawing on experience in teaching, research and community engagement, the paper argues that shifting the ethical foundations from which we understand‘crises’and reframing how geographers might see, think and act in The Anthropocene, pathways towards transformative learning, humility and, hopefully, substantive change can be forged through teaching, research and engagement.