Performing Multispecies Justice in the Dutch Caribbean

This project seeks to ethnographically examine practices in and of decolonial, multispecies theater in the Dutch Caribbean, where islands are severely affected by rising sea levels and consequently by coastal land and biodiversity loss. With the term “multispecies justice,” we mean to take the interests of nonhumans—including animals, plants, forests, rivers, and ecological systems—seriously in claims for justice.

The aim is to identify and articulate artistic research avenues that respond to and reflect on the islands’ ecological urgencies in order to critically reimagine other-than-human subjectivities. This can include applied theater or other performance-based methodologies.

Together with cooperation partners such as the Willemstad-based Teatro KadaKen, the project seeks to develop artistic strategies and modalities that go beyond climate justice as a subject or theme. This involves examining the politics of production and representation and expanding the performance space into a playground for critical engagement with multispecies imaginaries.