Smith, Hillary

Throughout the world, climate change is transforming people's relationships with coastal and marine commons. The unfolding effects of climate change often intersect with different identities and histories of exclusion that have curtailed equitable access to the commons. Despite a range of formal adaptation and mitigation strategies, people with close ties to coastal commons are responding to climate change through diverse forms of adaptation and commoning that reshape the commons and propose visions for alternative climate futures. This panel explores how climate change is altering access to the commons and how, through practices of commoning, different groups and collectives are working to ensure continued access to the commons and adapt to change. In particular, the panel will explore how commoners who have been historically excluded in decision-making around coastal governance - women seafood producers, LGBTQ+/queer beachgoers, urban environmental justice communities - are engaging with formal institutions but also crafting their own independent forms of adaptation through experimentation, situated knowledge, and political organizing. By connecting diverse cases of coastal commoning in response to climate change, the panel will explore the possibilities for more just, people-centered, and gender-inclusive forms of climate adaptation.