The Right to Remain: Resisting Climate Displacement

Sor Juana fought to remain—in her religious community, in intellectual life, in Mexico—despite pressure to conform or disappear. This resistance has direct parallel in climate justice: Indigenous peoples, subsistence farmers, and low-income communities face displacement by both climate impacts and 'green' development projects that privilege corporate interests over resident populations. 'Climate refugees' implies helplessness and inevitability; Sor Juana's model suggests instead a right to remain and adapt in place. This means defending communities' territorial claims, supporting local climate adaptation strategies, and rejecting development models that treat people as obstacles to extraction. Justice requires that those least responsible for climate change are not further dispossessed through both climate impacts and supposedly beneficial interventions. Sor Juana's stubborn insistence on her right to intellectual space parallels Indigenous communities' assertion of land rights and self-determination in climate adaptation.