We’re really excited to be joined by Dr Raven Cretney on Thursday 10th July 2025, from 8.30-10am BST.
Raven is a Senior Lecturer at Lincoln University, located in the South Island of Aotearoa New Zealand. Raven is a qualitative social scientist who works across human geography and political science. Her research largely focusses on collective action and policy change relating to post-disaster and environmental issues. Her work has included a number of topics including managed retreat and climate adaptation, the role of community scale action and leadership in catalysing environmental change, and the evolution of activism and social movements.
In response to her experience during the Canterbury earthquakes in 2010 and 2011, Raven’s early research focussed on the radical potential of community-scale action following disasters. This work spanned disaster response and recovery, ideas of resilience and vulnerability and dynamics of local and state driven crisis politics. This background has formed the foundation for Raven’s current work to understand the key issues for the disability community in Aotearoa in responding and adapting to climate change.
Aotearoa New Zealand is a country at high risk of disaster events such as earthquakes and volcanoes, but is also facing significant impacts from a changing climate. As a largely coastal nation, rising sea levels and increasing frequency and severity of floods or extreme heat events pose considerable challenges. How communities respond to these growing threats, and the possible need to relocate, is of key importance to the disability community who are over-represented in high risk areas and often excluded from decision-making and policy-making on these issues.
Raven will share the key themes from her recent project, as well as some of the connections with her work looking at climate activist solidarities during the early pandemic response. Raven will discuss the opportunities for exploring disability-led climate adaptation, the possibilities for learning from past events and the need for careful navigation of crisis politics in building solidarity across and within communities.