Rethinking Crisis Narratives: Towards a Feminist, Decolonial and Reflexive Approach to Climate and Conflict Research

Is climate change truly a “crisis amplifier and multiplier,” as often claimed in global policy discourse? During an advanced seminar on the so-called climate-conflict nexus in West Asia and North Africa convened at Goethe University Frankfurt, all involved critically engaged with this prevalent assumption. While compelling, it often leads to oversimplified narratives and misguided policies. This paper is the outcome of those collaborative discussions between students and lecturer, arguing for a feminist, decolonial, and reflexive approach to the researching and teaching of climate-conflict dynamics—one emphasizing intersectionality, acknowledging structural asymmetries, and challenging the dominant Eurocentric and ongoing colonial frameworks underpinning contemporary knowledge production. We propose a number of concrete measures to foster more participatory, self-reflective, and power-aware academic practice across six key areas: method and methodology; levels of analysis; concepts and theory; terminology and power; mode of research and positionality; and publication and dissemination. With this, we aim to encourage structural shifts in how climate-conflict scholarship is both conceptualized and practiced.