Kevon Rhiney
2023-2024 Barron Visiting Professor of Environmental Humanities at the Princeton High Meadows Environmental Institute with affiliations with the Departments of Anthropology and African American Studies
Biography
Kevon Rhiney is an Associate Professor of Geography, at Rutgers University – New Brunswick. His current research investigates the development and justice implications of global environmental change in the Caribbean, particularly the ways socio-ecological shocks (ranging from climate extremes, market volatilities to novel crop diseases) are unevenly experienced and negotiated by historically marginalized communities.
His most recent research explores the climate justice implications of post-hurricane reconstruction efforts across the Caribbean. Dr. Rhiney has co-edited two books and his work has been published in a number of interdisciplinary journals including the Annual Reviews, Geoforum, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Small Axe and World Development and featured in print media, including the New York Times, Irish Times, CNN, and the National Post (Canada). His research has been supported by a range of funding agencies including the Leverhulme Trust, the Green Climate Fund, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
Rhiney is a British Commonwealth postdoctoral fellow. He has held research and visiting appointments at the University of Oxford and the University of the West Indies (Jamaica). He is the editor for Geography Compass (Development Section) and serves on the international editorial boards for the Royal Geographical Society/Institute of British Geographers Wiley Book Series and the Political Geography Journal. Rhiney also served as a Contributing Author for the IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5C.
While at Princeton
In Fall 2023, Rhiney taught the undergraduate course “Neoliberal Natures”, organized a symposium on green extractivism and abolition ecologies in December, and gave several invited lectures at Princeton, SUNY ESF, and the University of Arizona related to his ongoing work on post-hurricane reconstruction politics in the Caribbean. The Neoliberal Natures course explored the ecological and political implications of growing efforts to enroll material nature in market-based environmental schemes, and examined how these schemes unfold across different geographies and contexts to shape social and environmental sustainability. The course was used as a critical space in moving the debate beyond just critique, and to begin envisioning alternative futures built around ideas of just transitions and a post-extractivist world. Students were introduced to a variety of core concepts in the field of environmental humanities to better understand how dynamic political, socio-cultural, economic and technological contexts can amplify social and environmental inequalities, yet also present opportunities for promoting genuine transformative change.
The symposium, which dovetailed with the Neoliberal Natures course, explored the ecological and justice implications of resource extraction, including new forms of global conservation efforts that are premised on the commodification and financialization of material nature as a planetary-scale solution to a range of global environmental crises. The symposium featured presentations from several leading scholars, environmental activists and thought leaders from across the United States, Canada, Latin America, and the Caribbean, working at the intersections of environmental research, policy and advocacy. The symposium was co-organized with the students from the Neoliberal Natures, who were able to engage in person with several of the presenters whose work they had read during the semester.
Rhiney also participated in a number of events in Fall 2023. On September 7th he served as a discussant along with Robert Kopp, for a Book Talk event with former Barron Visiting Professor, Christina Gerhardt, on her recently published book, “Sea Change: An Atlas of Islands in a Rising Ocean”. In October, Rhiney presented in the Environmental Humanities Colloquium at Princeton. His talk, “Hurricane Riskscapes, Island Survivalism, and the Post/Colonial Dilemma in the Caribbean”, traced the political tensions embedded in post-Irma hurricane disaster relief and rebuilding efforts on the eastern Caribbean island of St. Martin. Rhiney showed how disaster relief efforts on the island have become entangled in longstanding geopolitical tensions with the Netherlands. The talk was co-sponsored by the Princeton Fluid Futures Forum, the Department of Anthropology, the Department of English, the Humanities Council, the Eco-Theories Colloquium, the High Meadows Environmental Institute and the Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies. Rhiney also gave similar invited talks at SUNY ESF and the University of Arizona.
In Spring 2024, Rhiney taught the undergraduate course, “Climate Coloniality, Race and Justice”, which examined the connections between climate change and longstanding processes of colonialism, slavery, and racial capitalism. In the course, students explored the ways wider scale systems of power and domination produce unjust environmental and climatic conditions and the disproportionate ways these systems impact BIPOC communities across the globe. The course also traced the history and evolution of the climate justice movement, including its connection with the environmental justice and civil rights movement in the United States and ongoing calls for climate reparations particularly among African-descended populations. For their final term assignment, students wrote review papers on a climate fiction novel of their choice to examine the kinds of future worlds that often get depicted and imagined in fictional novels and how these forms of storytelling can help us better understand what is at stake within the context of a climate-altered planet.
In April, Rhiney organized a second symposium which focused on Loss and Damage Financing. With the recent establishment of a loss and damage trust fund in December 2023 at the UN Climate Change Conference of Parties (COP28) summit in Dubai, the symposium was used as a space to explore several questions surrounding this milestone achievement, including the potential impact and future trajectory of the fund and climate-related loss and damage financing in general. The presentations shed light on the science and policy debates informing the loss and damage discourse and what this all means for vulnerable populations and frontline communities already exposed to the negative impacts of climate change. The topic of loss and damage takes on greater salience against the backdrop of a world that continues to fall short on meeting crucial greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets and the challenges this pose for advancing just and equitable global climate action.
In May, Rhiney presented in the HMEI Faculty Seminar Series. His talk, “Bridging the Climate Science-Practice Divide through Community Engaged Research”, drew from past and ongoing work in the Caribbean to explore some of the opportunities and challenges in conducting community engaged research in climate vulnerable farming communities. The presentation covered some key methodological questions around conducting interdisciplinary research that utilize participatory and community-led methods to inform existing scientific and climate adaptation efforts. Rhiney also participated on a Princeton Reunion panel on “Environmental Justice and Racism”. The panel was organized during the Reunion week and was used as a means to highlight the value of applied research in combatting and eradicating racism in the United States.
During the year, Rhiney served as a co-editor for the forthcoming Routledge Handbook of Caribbean Studies and co-edited a special issue on “Liberalism’s Limits on Climate Justice” in the peer-reviewed journal, Climate and Development. Rhiney was interviewed by the CNN in July where he reflected on Hurricane Beryl’s impacts on the Caribbean, and his ongoing work on the challenges with hurricane rebuilding efforts in the region. Rhiney has also been recently nominated by the Government of Jamaica for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) consideration to serve as an expert reviewer for Working Group II of the Seventh Assessment Report cycle.