Adaptation Futures 2025 in Christchurch, New Zealand

At the Adaptation Futures 2025 in Christchurch, New Zealand, we explored how participatory research can foster capacity for climate action in cities. 

With Gina Ziervogel, Meg Parsons, and an engaged international audience, we shared lessons learned from our work with New Zealand’s Indigenous communities and underserved communities in Cape Town and Los Angeles, highlighting how knowledge coproduction works in often contested real-life situations. Participatory research can build trust, buy-in and a shared vision for the future. Still, structural constraints persist, such as infrastructure neglect and a considerable deficit in transparency and trust. We were also delighted with the music played on taonga pūoro (traditional Māori instruments). 

We finished in San Bernardino, “Moving the Youth,” a three-city initiative focused on envisioning more equitable and people-centred transport systems. In collaboration with students from Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Xochimilco (UAM-X) in Mexico City, the University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC) in Canada, and California State University, San Bernardino (CSUSB) in the U.S., this initiative engages Gen Z participants in imagining alternative urban futures. Thanks Paloma Villegas, Valerie Berseth and Muzna Ahmad for co-creating this effort.