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Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jonathan Silver, Professor of Urban Geography, University of Sheffield

The US and Israel have sparked international condemnation over their leaked vision for the reconstruction of a shattered Gaza. The urban development plan seems to have evolved since its emergence earlier in the year. It now includes economic drivers such as blockchain-based trade initiatives, data centres and “world-class resorts”.

And its alignment to the proposed regional logistical network, the India-Middle East-Europe Corridor (Imec) aims to put it at the centre of a pro-American regional architecture.

The images and details that have emerged in the Gaza Reconstitution, Economic Acceleration and Transformation (Great) Trust blueprint indicate a vision that clearly pays homage to Gulf urbanism. Similar mega-projects, towers and speculative real estate ventures have driven the transformation of Dubai and other Gulf cities since the 1980s.

The 38-page document, initially published in the Washington Post, is an architectural fantasy of a hyper-modern, coastal enclave. Its planning origins seem twofold. First, it’s rooted in the libertarian ideologies of what’s known as a charter city – urban development spaces with different laws and institutions than the jurisdiction they sit within, such as Prospera in Honduras.

Second, it appears to take inspiration from the authoritarian control of oil-rich monarchies such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia. These states are now intimately aligned with US president Donald Trump and Israel itself.

The plan was reportedly aided by the Boston Consulting Group, with staff from the Tony Blair Institute apparently privy to previous discussions. Boston Consulting Group has since said that two of its former partners took part in the work without its knowledge. The Tony Blair Institute has also distanced itself, saying it has never “authored, developed or endorsed” plans to relocate residents from Gaza.

The US$100 billion (£74 billion) investor-led plan has all the standard ingredients of a new city. This includes prestige waterfront developments for the international elite. It envisages apartment blocks owned by international real estate developers, whether Saudi state-owned funds or US corporate trusts.

Special economic zones with favourable tax conditions supposedly promise advanced manufacturing potential. And various kinds of green and sustainable technologies are also proposed – potentially greenwashing the massive carbon footprint of the conflict.

Gaza is unlikely to be the next Dubai though. The plan includes massive Israeli security buffer zones, suggesting the likelihood of resistance from Palestinian militant groups to occupation. In all likelihood, it would also finally extinguish any prospect of a two-state solution.

The risks for financial investors will be massive. These include possible legal liabilities around land theft and potential incorporation into court proceedings on genocide at the International Court of Justice should these happen. It’s no wonder the plan has been described as “insane” by a senior associate at the Royal United Services Institute think tank, and opposed by some parts of the Israeli media.

Understanding the urban dimensions of the “Gaza Riviera” plan needs more than a planning lens though. It involves placing its development within the wider history and geography of Palestine. Doing so arguably positions the initiative less as a reconstruction effort and more as the next step towards the erasure of the Palestinian presence in the territory.

Scholars of settler colonialism have shown that its logic is one of elimination. This, it’s explained, is to enable territorial control and to establish a new settler society on the land. As Theodor Herzl, founding father of Zionism and held in high regard by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, argued: “If I wish to substitute a new building for an old one, I must demolish before I construct.”

Israel has previously asserted territorial control over Gaza, including the forced transfer of Palestinians to the territory in 1948, which they refer to as the Nakba (the catastrophe), as well as with illegal settlements between 1967 and 2005, and the blockade of the strip from 2007. All these forms of control should be understood within the logic of elimination. The most recent military onslaught in Gaza demonstrates the latest phase in this process.

The plan is reliant on two on-the-ground factors beyond the financial and geo-political – urbicide and expulsion. First, establishing this new society involves demolishing centuries of historical built environment and the support networks of urban life. This urbicide of Gaza is the deliberate destruction of its civil infrastructure, built environment, roads and hospitals, removing its physical character and functionality as a settlement.

What the plan would mean for Palestinians

Forensic Architecture is a group of researchers who use architectural techniques to investigate state violence and human rights abuses. Its Cartography of Genocide database has documented that the Israel Defense Forces’ spatial violence has been nearly complete in many areas of Gaza. This sets the necessary conditions for the plan to proceed.

The plan has little space for the 2.3 million Palestinians living in Gaza. There are reports of residents being offered up to US$5,000 to make way for the “Riviera”, supposedly on a temporary basis.

Meanwhile the Israeli military continues killing Palestinian civilians and pushing massive displacement within Gaza itself, while far-right Israeli politicians make public their desire to remove Palestinians from the territory.

Claims that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza – including from the International Association of Genocide Scholars – are becoming more widespread. Israel’s actions have resulted in death and injury to tens of thousands of Palestinians. The plan for the redevelopment of Gaza can also be understood within this settler colonial logic: an urban idea that, in order to be achieved, necessitates the erasure of all that stood before through the expulsion of the population and urbicide of the built environment.

Jonathan Silver does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The ‘Gaza Riviera’ is a fantasy plan that relies on urbicide and expulsion – https://theconversation.com/the-gaza-riviera-is-a-fantasy-plan-that-relies-on-urbicide-and-expulsion-264811

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Rafeef Ziadah, Senior Lecturer in Politics and Public Policy (Emerging Economies), King’s College London

Entire neighbourhoods in Gaza lie in ruins. Hundreds of thousands are crammed into tents, struggling for food, water and power. Despite this devastation, a leaked 38-page document from Donald Trump’s administration – the Gaza Reconstitution, Economic Acceleration and Transformation (Great) Trust – proposes to “fundamentally transform Gaza” folding it into the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (Imec).

While framed as a reconstruction plan, it outlines “massive US gains,” Imec’s acceleration, and consolidation of an “Abrahamic regional architecture” – a term that refers back to the 2020 Abraham Accords, US-brokered agreements that normalised relations between Israel, the UAE and Bahrain.

In many respects, the document echoes the “Gaza 2035” plan promoted by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. This was the 2024 proposal that envisioned Gaza as a sanitised logistics hub linked to Saudi Arabia’s Neom mega-project and stripped of meaningful Palestinian presence.

As my co-authors and I trace in a recent book Resisting Erasure: Capital, Imperialism and Race in Palestine, this continues a pattern of policies that deny Palestinians political agency and reduce Gaza to an investment opportunity.

Imec was launched at the 2023 G20 summit in New Delhi. Signed by the US, EU, India, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, it was billed as a transformative infrastructure project. It comprised a chain of railways, ports, pipelines and digital cables linking South Asia to Europe via the Arabian Peninsula.

Israel was not formally a signatory, but its role was implicit. The corridor runs from Indian ports to the UAE, overland through Saudi Arabia and Jordan to the Haifa Port in Israel, then across the Mediterranean to Greece and Europe.

Like many such mega-projects, Imec is marketed in the language of efficiency – faster trade times, lower costs, new energy and data corridors. But its deeper significance is political. For Washington it serves as a counterweight to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) while binding India into a US-led system. Europe views it as a hedge against the Suez Canal and Russian pipelines.

The Gulf monarchies see a chance to position themselves as the region’s main centre for trade and transport. Israel promotes Haifa as a gateway for Euro-Asian trade. India, meanwhile, gains quicker access to Europe while tightening its ties with both Washington and the Gulf.

Gaza as obstacle and gateway

The plan casts Gaza both as an Iranian outpost undermining Imec and as a historic crossroads of trade routes linking Egypt, Arabia, India and Europe.

By invoking Gaza’s history as a trading route, the plan presents the territory as a natural logistics gateway poised to “thrive once again” at the centre of a “pro-American regional order”. The blueprint proposes extending Gaza’s port from Egypt’s al-Arish, integrating its industries into regional supply chains, and reorganising its land into “planned cities” and digital economies.

What is being imagined is not recovery for its residents, but the conversion of Gaza into a logistics centre serving Imec.

Perhaps the most radical element of the Great Trust is its model of direct trusteeship. The plan envisions a US-led custodianship, beginning with a bilateral US–Israel agreement and eventually expanding into a multilateral trust. This body would govern Gaza, oversee security, manage aid and control redevelopment. After a “Palestinian polity” is established, the trust would still retain powers through a Compact of Free Association.

Even the most ill-fated US occupation plans in Iraq and Afghanistan did not so openly imagine territory as a corporatised trusteeship for global capital.

‘Voluntary’ relocation

Another striking feature of the plan is its provision for “voluntary relocation.” Palestinians who leave their homes in Gaza would receive relocation packages, rent subsidies and food stipends. The document assumes a quarter of the population will depart permanently, with financial models showing how the scheme becomes more profitable the more people leave.

In reality, the notion of voluntary departure under siege and famine is not voluntary at all. Israel’s blockade has produced what UN officials describe as engineered mass starvation. To frame out-migration as a choice is to sanction ethnic cleansing.

The plan also shows how the language of the Abraham Accords has been grafted onto Gaza’s imagined future. Nearly every element is dressed in “Abrahamic” branding: an Abraham gateway logistics hub in Rafah, an Abrahamic infrastructure corridor of railways, even new highways renamed after Saudi and Emirati leaders.

Techno-futurist gloss is added through smart manufacturing zones, AI-regulated data centres, luxury resorts and new digital-ID cities, planned “smart cities” where daily life, from housing and healthcare to commerce and employment, would be mediated through ID-based digital systems.

Saudi Arabia and the fig leaf of Palestinian statehood

A central ambition of the Great Trust is to channel Gulf capital into Gaza’s redevelopment under its trusteeship. The plan forecasts US$70–100 billion (£50-£74 billion) in public investment and another $35–65 billion from private investors, with public–private partnerships financing ports, rail, hospitals and data centres.

Saudi Arabia, though not formally part of the Abraham accords, signalled its acceptance of the overall framework when it backed Imec. For Washington, Gaza’s reconstruction is imagined as the final step in persuading Riyadh to make normalisation official – a prize that would anchor the “Abrahamic order”.

The Trump plan is designed to smooth this path, offering Saudi Arabia a custodial role in Gaza’s redevelopment and lucrative stakes in Imec. To make the deal more palatable, it even floats the idea of a Palestinian “polity” – a limited governance entity under trusteeship.

While such an arrangement may be billed as a step towards Palestinian statehood recognition by Saudi Arabia, this is precisely why any future gestures of recognition must be treated with caution. The real question is what, exactly, is being recognised, and in whose interest.

The Great Trust is, at its core, an investment prospectus. The document values Gaza today at “practically $0” – but projects it could be worth $324 billion within a decade.

Gaza is described less as a society than as a distressed asset to be flipped. This is disaster capitalism at its sharpest. It is devastation reframed as the precondition for speculative profit.

Yet visions of free-trade zones and futuristic cities quickly collide with reality. Palestinians have consistently rejected such schemes. What this leaked document makes clear however, is that Gaza’s future is being framed within this broader US effort to reshape the region.

Rafeef Ziadah does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Donald Trump’s vision for Gaza’s future: what a leaked plan tells us about US regional strategy – https://theconversation.com/donald-trumps-vision-for-gazas-future-what-a-leaked-plan-tells-us-about-us-regional-strategy-264899

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Nicole Bulawa, Lecturer in Marketing, Lancaster University

Charging your electric car for the first time can seem confusing. The whole process just isn’t very intuitive. There are different plug types and charging speeds, plus various ways of charging at home, at motorway stations or in car parks.

Despite how complex it may seem at first, most people find it pretty straightforward once they get used to it. One reason for this is explained in my research which shows how imitation helps people get to grips with new technology. In this case, electric car charging copied the well-known: refuelling a car.

That might seem obvious, but not all countries opted for a recharging infrastructure. China, for example, is focusing on battery swapping. As the name suggests, the battery in your electric car is swapped for a charged one. So, while imitation is not the only option, it is the approach that has made the UK’s electric vehicle infrastructure feel less alien to us.

As a result, large charging stations in the UK could easily be mistaken for petrol stations simply because of their design. They are located on or near motorways, are often sheltered, and have rows of parking spaces. Not to mention, there is usually a shop, as one would expect at any typical petrol station. Rapid chargers also resemble their petrol counterparts. These are the ones that can charge an electric car up to 80% in just 20 to 60 minutes and look like a fuel pump with their boxy, towering design and cable connections.

The basic principles of charging and refuelling are also very similar.

To refuel your car, you drive to a petrol station, park next to a fuel pump, connect the nozzle to the car, pay and drive off again. Now, imagine swapping the petrol station for a charging station and replacing the fuel nozzle with a plug. Nothing much has changed except you are now charging an electric car instead of filling a tank with petrol – apart from the environmental impact perhaps.

Inspiration for designing charging stations was taken from more than just the car industry. When it comes to payment options, you can still make one-off card payments, just as you would at any petrol station. Or, to save on charging costs, you can use one of the many charging apps and subscriptions. We often use these in everyday life, so they make the whole process of electric car charging a bit more familiar.

The limits of imitation

But new technologies also bring change and change means that we can’t just copy everything. One of the main points of difference is that charging takes longer than refuelling.

Since changes, especially those involving longer waiting times, are not very well received, something had to be done. Spoiler alert: it was not done by imitating something. Quite the opposite, in fact.

While navigation maps showed petrol and charging stations along the route, information on charging station availability had to be added to avoid electric car drivers arriving at a particular station to find it full, with hours of waiting time ahead. This allows people to see how many chargers are being used in real life. So, it shows that certain adaptations are needed for technology to be integrated into everyday life effectively.

These add-ons are usually introduced to address hiccups caused by unexpected consumer behaviour, such as blocking charging stations even when the car is nicely charged. Originally, the rules for charging were very similar to those for refuelling (as a reminder: you park your car, fill it up, pay and leave).

But since charging an electric car typically takes longer than refuelling, drivers took the liberty of overstaying their welcome. In other words, drivers failed to return to their electric car once it was charged, causing a bottleneck of frustrated drivers. As a result, new rules were introduced to specify how long an electric car can remain at a bay once charging is complete, particularly for rapid charging.

We usually think of innovations as being new and exciting. However, many innovations, from Thomas Edison’s electric lightbulb to the modern circus, contain features that we have seen or used before. The traditional circus tent, for example, is still used in modern circuses, but theatrical and acrobatic performances have replaced animal shows, which was a novelty at the time. While the concept of imitation may not always have the best reputation due to its apparent lack of originality, it has played a significant role throughout history and will probably continue to do so in the future.

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The study was supported by ERF funding from ESCP Business School. The funding body did not exert any influence over the study or its subsequent dissemination.

– ref. Similarities between recharging and refuelling make the switch to electric cars an easier choice – https://theconversation.com/similarities-between-recharging-and-refuelling-make-the-switch-to-electric-cars-an-easier-choice-262000

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jonathan Darling, Professor in Human Geography, Durham University

Over recent weeks, the interim injunction to halt the housing of asylum seekers at the Bell hotel in Epping has thrown government plans into crisis. The Home Office has now successfully appealed this judgment but does still need to come up with another plan for housing asylum seekers in the longer term.

The case has highlighted the need to rebuild relationships with local government. In trying to stop the Bell hotel from housing asylum seekers, Epping Forest district council argued that an initial ruling in its favour was an important step in “redressing the imbalance” between the priorities of the Home Office and the interests of councils and residents. Long-standing concerns about a lack of consultation over where, and how, asylum seekers are housed suggest we should expect to see further legal challenges in places where these hotels are located.

The lack of communication with communities over the hotels has generated fertile ground for anti-migrant protests. The outcome has been an accommodation model that works for no one and increasingly fraught relationships between central and local government.

Hotels are used as emergency accommodation because the last government failed to process asylum claims, leaving a backlog of people trapped in the asylum system. They are unable to work or secure their own housing.

The Labour government has made a commitment to end the use of hotels by 2029 and has made some progress in reducing hotel use since its peak in 2023. But there are no easy alternatives.

It has tried to use former RAF bases and military barracks as sites for mass accommodation but conditions are extremely poor. The short-term holding facility at Manston has seen outbreaks of disease, severe overcrowding, and accusations of racism by contracted staff. Accommodation at RAF Wethersfield in Essex has been likened to a prison by those housed there with charities warning of a mental health crisis unfolding as a consequence of insufficient support. And the costs of running these sites are greater than hotels.

Alternatives

The government could instead look to European neighbours like Germany and Sweden, where asylum seekers are able to work after set periods in the asylum system. This means a reduced reliance on the state for housing and greater pathways to integration. Despite campaigns to support the right to work for asylum seekers, the UK continues to deny such a right. This limits the ability of asylum seekers to secure their own housing. In the current political climate, willingness to change course and grant asylum seekers the right to work seems unlikely.

The Epping Forest case should force the government to rethink. The immediate priority must be to work closely with local government to provide safe and secure community-based housing for people seeking asylum.

Achieving this will require ending the privatisation of asylum accommodation and returning control to local authorities. Empowering councils to have a stake in the future of asylum accommodation will mean that the asylum system can benefit from the knowledge and expertise of local government on housing conditions, markets and standards.

Moving asylum accommodation back under public control means an end to the excessive profiteering of private contractors. It can also offer scope for experimenting with housing models that have been ignored by profit-driven housing providers.

For example, approaches to co-housing show how investments in accommodating asylum seekers can be shared with other groups in need of housing. In Amsterdam, co-housing projects have provided accommodation for young refugees alongside Dutch students who choose to live in specially designed housing units with shared facilities and social spaces. In Berlin, co-housing accommodates asylum seekers alongside residents with German citizenship and dedicated community hubs. These models show that alternatives can both involve the local community and deliver dignified housing.

Respecting refugee rights

This summer the government has shown no leadership on asylum. Reform UK and an increasingly radical Conservative party have promised simplistic and hardline policies that show no respect for the lives and rights of asylum seekers.

In response, the government should be bold. To change the failing asylum accommodation system the government needs to make a public case for why housing asylum seekers with dignity matters. The government should communicate the importance of respecting international law and the right to asylum. That means defending the 1951 Refugee Convention against those who are seeking to remove protections for people fleeing conflict and persecution.

It also means rejecting the idea that those seeking asylum in Britain are “illegal” – a term that has become mainstream. Asylum seekers have a legal right to seek safety and their actions in doing so are not illegal. Calling asylum seekers “illegal” makes it easier to dismiss their need for protection and to justify their poor treatment.

Leadership involves challenging the divisive language used to describe asylum seekers, rather than allowing terms such as “invasion” to remain uncontested. Divisive language pits vulnerable groups in society against one another.

Legally, and morally, the state has responsibilities to support all those facing homelessness. Denying these responsibilities and restricting the rights of asylum seekers will not advance the rights of others. Instead, focus should be on developing public housing options that combine resources for all those who are homeless.

Innovative and inclusive ways to provide safe, secure, and dignified accommodation to asylum seekers and other people are available. The Epping Forest case should give the government the imperative to explore them.

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Jonathan Darling has received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council. He is affiliated with the No Accommodation Network as a trustee.

– ref. After the Epping Forest case, the government needs to be bold and build asylum housing that works – https://theconversation.com/after-the-epping-forest-case-the-government-needs-to-be-bold-and-build-asylum-housing-that-works-264060

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Dominic Bryan, Chair professor, Queen’s University Belfast

Flags – particularly the union flag and the St George’s Cross – continue to appear in towns and cities in England, at times in response to the housing of migrants and asylum seekers in the local area.

Groups such as Operation Raise the Colours, the Weoley Warriors, Flag Force UK, and the Wythall Flaggers have claimed responsibility for putting the flags up. In many places the flags seem to be in place for the foreseeable future. In Brighton and Hove the local council began to remove flags, only to be forced to leave some up when the contractors sent to take them down were abused.

Displays of flags on street furniture and buildings, such as pubs, are not unusual. But while they are common around the celebration of royal events and major sporting occasions, it is more exceptional to see them put up in reference to political issues. This appears more coercive as an action. There is a sense of territory being marked.

We’ve heard predictable claims that the flags are just a display of pride in a British or English identity. This is an easy claim to make as it clearly is, in part, to do with nationalistic pride. The point is that they are being hung in particular places, by particular groups of people and in a particular way that clearly links them to the ongoing debates and hostility to migration.

As any anthropologist would tell you, symbols are multi-vocal. They offer a range of meanings that depend on who is using them and the context in which they are being used. If the symbols are being used to send a message, the intended recipient of that message adds another layer of meaning.

The use of flags, in what political scientist Marc Howard Ross calls the symbolic landscape, carries significant cultural value – or what sociologist Pierre Bourdieu would have termed symbolic capital. They are displays of patriotism that are common in different forms, in nations around the world. They are used by nation states in rituals and public spaces, by the elite, by politicians and by companies selling their products. They’re waved at sports events and displayed as part of everyday, banal, practices. They are the stock and trade of how the nation is imagined and performed.

Anthropologists Thomas Hylland Eriksen and Richard Jenkins’s book Flag, Nation, Symbolism in Europe and America shows that the use of flags can vary quite widely. In Denmark, the national flag adorns birthday cakes. In Canada it is the essential addition to any large cottage around the lakes of Ontario. And in the US, one of the most flag obsessed countries, it is flown at sporting events big and small.

Flags in Northern Ireland

Generally the British are seen as being more reserved in their use of the Union flag, in part because of its complex relationship with Englishness, Irishness, Scottishness and Welshness. But in Northern Ireland, flags fly from lamp-posts nearly all year around. Union flags, the Ulster Banner (the former flag for the Northern Ireland government), and Scottish Saltires often fly alongside the paramilitary flags of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and the Ulster Defence Association (UDA).

Many of these are put up in the summer and, while some are taken down in September, others remain through winter, becoming tatty as the weather turns colder and wetter, and ultimately being replaced in the spring. Flags have long been put up to commemorate the Battle of the Boyne on July 12, but the commemorative season now includes the Battle of the Somme (July 1), local band parades in June and goes through to Ulster Day (September 28) and Remembrance Sunday in November.

Flags are put up predominantly by groups of men in working-class areas. The expansion of the practice seemed to date from around 2000 when a feud between the UVF and UDA flared up and each group used flags to demarcate the areas they controlled. This was predicated on the available of cheap, mass-produced nylon flags imported from Asia.

Irish Tricolours fly in Irish nationalist areas, but not with the same density or frequency. They, too, are sometimes used as signs of demarcation between different Republican groups. The Tricolour has also recently been put up on lamp-posts in Dublin by rightwing groups.

In Northern Ireland the practice has many detractors. Some feel the flag is being disrespected (particularly as the flags quickly become tatty and dirty) while others see their presence as part of a practice of coercive control by paramilitary groups. Others long for more shared public space without these symbols and some fear their presence might reduce the value of houses in the area.

There is in fact clear legislation in Northern Ireland making it unlawful for a flag to be affixed to a lamp-post. However the Department of Infrastructure, which has authority over the lamp-posts, steadfastly refuses to remove the majority of the thousands of flags. Despite the coercive control invoked and the displays of flags by organisations proscribed under terrorism laws, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) rarely intervenes.

A five-year, all-party Commission on Flags, Identity, Culture and Tradition (of which I was co-chair), published a report in 2021 concluding that “citizens do not have lawful authority to put up any flag on lamp posts or road signs” and calling for better coordination on the issue that should include local councils. But no new policies have developed.

Despite a dozen research and policy reports over more than two decades (including at least six with me as one of the authors) funded by British research organisations, the Northern Ireland government the Irish government and charities, the numbers of flags on lamp-posts remains in the tens of thousands.

Authorities find it difficult to decide how to handle flags in part because “policing” the use of the national flag looks unpatriotic. Nationalism and patriotism are so embedded within the discourses of nearly all of the major political parties that it’s impossible for politicians to tell the general public that they aren’t allowed to wrap themselves in the same symbols.

And so even if it is obvious the symbols are used as leverage in a racist or sectarian act of territory marking, those with authority are loathed to do anything about it.

Short of the legitimacy of “tradition” that is so powerful in Northern Ireland, the practice in England, Scotland, Wales or the rest of Ireland, might fade away. Or it might become embedded in a world of increased chauvinistic and xenophobic nationalism.

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This article contains references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and this may include links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something from bookshop.org The Conversation UK may earn a commission.

Dominic Bryan receives funding from the ESRC and I have received funding from the AHRC, the Government of Northern Ireland and the Irish Government in the past.

I am a member of the Green Party.

– ref. I’ve researched the politics of flags in Northern Ireland for decades – here’s what England needs to understand – https://theconversation.com/ive-researched-the-politics-of-flags-in-northern-ireland-for-decades-heres-what-england-needs-to-understand-264203

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Carolina Machado Oliveira, Filmmaker, Senior Lecturer in Factual, Bournemouth University

Deep in the Amazon, sound designer Eric Terena has been capturing the sounds of the rainforest while sitting silently beneath the dense, towering treetops with his recording equipment. He has noticed some huge changes.

“What the environment once spoke, what biodiversity once sang, has shifted to sounds from industrial projects that have arrived in our territories,” said Terena, co-founder of Mídia Indígena, a Brazilian media and communications network which promotes and preserves Indigenous cultures.

His words describe more than a change in sound – they show how nature is gradually being replaced by machines. Ancestral songs have been drowned out by industrial noise. Terena shares these changes using digital tools to bring local stories to global audiences, turning lived experience into climate knowledge.

In our research with Indigenous communities in the Brazilian Amazon, we examine how film and other media technologies, from smartphones to social platforms, are being used to document environmental change, defend land rights and influence climate debates. Together with Indigenous leaders and the Intercultural Faculty in Mato Grosso, Brazil, we explore how “educommunication” – which combines media education with active community participation – can build the technical skills and political capacity that young communicators need to tell their stories to different audiences, from local villagers to global leaders.

As Cop30, the UN climate summit, comes to Brazil this November, our research shows how these digital tools are enabling Indigenous voices to help reshape global understanding of the climate crisis – ensuring their perspectives are present not only in cultural storytelling, but in international environmental decision-making.

A pivotal shift

This shift didn’t happen overnight. It began with a few voices that grew into a movement. Terena co-founded Mídia Indígena in 2017 at the Free Land Camp, a yearly Indigenous rights gathering in Brasília. Alongside him, a group of young Guajajara leaders (Indigenous peoples from Maranhão, Brazil) launched the platform, training 128 young Indigenous people how to report, record and share their stories. Mídia Indígena has grown quickly – its videos now receive more than 10 million views each year.

At the heart of this work is a powerful idea: “Nothing about us, without us.” Indigenous people can now tell their own stories without relying on outsiders to speak for them. They decide what to film, how to tell a story, and who sees it.

The impact of this shift became clear during the Yanomami humanitarian crisis in early 2023. The Yanomami, one of the largest Indigenous groups in the Amazon, live across northern Brazil and southern Venezuela in territories deeply affected by illegal gold mining. That year, reports emerged of severe malnutrition, child deaths and mercury poisoning caused by mining operations contaminating rivers and destroying forest ecosystems.

Because Mídia Indígena’s reporters were already present in the territory, they were the first to document and publish evidence of the crisis. Their coverage not only exposed the immediate health emergency but also linked it to broader issues of environmental destruction and climate change. National and international outlets eventually followed with their own reports – but only after Indigenous journalists had already broken the story.

This was more than journalism; it was lived truth, rooted in a deep knowledge of the land. Mídia Indígena’s reporting had an authenticity that no outsider could match.

And they are not alone. Young communicators from Xingu+, a network from the Xingu River basin and surrounding Indigenous territories in Brazil, created a powerful video called Fire is burning the eyes of Xingu, showing illegal fires destroying parts of the Amazon. Their video caught the attention of the US Agency for International Development and the EU, emphasising how local stories can prompt global awareness.

Films by the Ijã Mytyli Manoki and Myki Cinema Collective, founded in 2020 by two neighbouring Indigenous peoples of Mato Grosso, show how traditional knowledge and rituals are being praised in Europe, even if they’re less known in Brazil. As filmmaker Renan Kisedjê said in the short film Our Grandparents Hunted Here, “we are digital warriors”. Where once bows and arrows defended the land, today cameras and smartphones continue the fight for land, rights and justice.

Challenging outdated ideas

Collectives such as Mídia Guarani are another part of this digital resistance. Their videos challenge outdated ideas about Indigenous life and show how deeply these communities are connected to both nature and technology.

But this storytelling is not only about identity – it’s about survival. These creators shine a light on urgent threat such as Brazil’s “devastation bill”, which seeks to weaken environmental safeguards by expanding environmental self-licensing and eroding protections for traditional territories. Such measures open the door to unchecked pollution and land grabs.

By reporting on dangers like this, Indigenous communicators seek to hold governments and corporations to account. Their stories do more than inform – they generate public pressure and demand change.

This shift matters internationally too. The UK has pledged £11.6 billion in climate finance between 2021 and 2026, including £3 billion for nature restoration and £1.5 billion for forests. Yet the Independent Commission for Aid Impact, an organisation that scrutinises UK aid spending, warns that changes in accounting may have “moved the goalposts”, inflating apparent spending without ensuring impact on the ground.

Much of this funding has traditionally flowed through large international charities and foundations, such as the Rainforest Foundation UK and the International Institute for Environment and Development, which work with Indigenous communities on mapping, monitoring, advocacy and sustainable policy.

Increasingly, however, Indigenous communities are speaking directly to funding donors and shaping allocations. This shift matters because they collectively manage vast areas of land critical to conservation. While many governments invest in expensive climate technologies, these communities have long protected ecosystems through practices proven over generations.

For the first time in the history of UN climate summits, large numbers of South American Indigenous people will attend Cop30 in November – both in person and online. For a long time, they’ve been building networks to fill the gap left by mainstream media. Now, these once silenced voices are loud, clear and deeply informed.

In late August, a hundred Indigenous reporters gathered in Belém for the 1st National Meeting of Indigenous Communication. Under the motto “Indigenous communication is resistance, territory and future”, they strengthened their networks and prepared collectively for COP30.

As the world’s most experienced environmental defenders gain more power in climate talks, their stories, and the way they tell them, will help shape the decisions that affect us all.

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The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The digital movement that enables Indigenous people to show for themselves how the Amazon region is changing – https://theconversation.com/the-digital-movement-that-enables-indigenous-people-to-show-for-themselves-how-the-amazon-region-is-changing-261616