Indigenous communication and the climate crisis in the Global South

The praxis of Brazilian Indigenous media activists

Abstract

This article analyzes the praxis of Brazilian Indigenous communication in the face of the communicational challenges imposed by the climate crisis in the Global South. Drawing from a decolonial perspective and the concept of cosmopolitics, we investigate how Indigenous media activists reconfigure the communicator, the medium, and the message to contest the meanings of the environmental emergency and the imminent ecological collapse. This qualitative research, based on content analysis of public speeches by 20 communicators, demonstrates that this practice transcends conventional activism, acting as an effort to "hold up the sky" against extractivist logic. We conclude that the proposal to "indigenize" communication offers pathways toward climate justice and the strengthening of an ecology of knowledges capable of responding to contemporary crises and challenging Western dichotomies.