•A managerial approach to adaptation belies its nature as a socio-political process.•Adaptation can constitute as well as contest, authority, subjectivity and knowledges.•These struggles can open up ...or close down space for transformational adaptation•Subjectivities inherent to problem understandings need to be questioned.•Focus is needed on multiple adaptation knowledges and emancipatory subjectivities
This paper is motivated by a concern that adaptation and vulnerability research suffer from an under-theorization of the political mechanisms of social change and the processes that serve to reproduce vulnerability over time and space. We argue that adaptation is a socio-political process that mediates how individuals and collectives deal with multiple and concurrent environmental and social changes. We propose that applying concepts of subjectivity, knowledges and authority to the analysis of adaptation focuses attention on this socio-political process. Drawing from vulnerability, adaptation, political ecology and social theory literatures, we explain how power is reproduced or contested in adaptation practice through these three concepts. We assert that climate change adaptation processes have the potential to constitute as well as contest authority, subjectivity and knowledge, thereby opening up or closing down space for transformational adaptation. We expand on this assertion through four key propositions about how adaptation processes can be understood and outline an emergent empirical research agenda, which aims to explicitly examine these propositions in specific social and environmental contexts. We describe how the articles in this special issue are contributing to this nascent research agenda, providing an empirical basis from which to theorize the politics of adaptation. The final section concludes by describing the need for a reframing of adaptation policy, practice and analysis to engage with multiple adaptation knowledges, to question subjectivities inherent in discourses and problem understandings, and to identify how emancipatory subjectivities – and thus the potential for transformational adaptation – can be supported.
Current conceptualizations of vulnerability have so far served to describe—and reproduce—social difference, setting people apart at local and global scales. Yet vulnerability is fundamental to the ...connectedness in social relations critical to understanding and acting on climate change. A more compassionate type of research is urgently required; that is, one that goes beyond the material and political dimensions to investigate the deeply personal. Drawing on politics of adaptation, emotional geographies, sustainability science and psychology literatures, the paper reconceptualizes vulnerability as co-suffering, linking lived experiences with a shared humanity.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Alarming rates of environmental change have catalyzed scholars to call for fundamental transformations in social‐political and economic relations. Yet cautionary tales about how power and politics ...are constitutive of these efforts fill the literature. We show how a relational framing of adaptation and transformation demands a political, cross‐scalar, and socionatural analysis to probe the affects and effects of climate change and better grasp how transformative change unfolds. We bring affect theory into conversation with the literature on adaptation politics, socio‐environmental transformations, subjectivity, and our empirical work to frame our analysis around three under investigated aspects of transformation: (i) the uncertain and unpredictable relations that constitute socionatures; (ii) other ways of knowing; and (iii) the affective and emotional relations that form a basis for action. Affective adaptation represents a different ontological take on transformation by reframing the socionatural, normative and ethical aspects as relational, uncertain, and performative. This directs analytical attention to processes rather than outcomes. The emphasis on the encounter between bodies in affect theory points to the need for experiential and embodied ways of knowing climate to effect transformative change. Effective transformation requires recognizing uncertainty and unpredictability as part of transformative processes. This is not because all outcomes are acceptable, but rather because uncertainty and unpredictability are elements which help generate affects (action) and emotional commitment to shared human and more than human relations in action, projects, and policies.
This article is categorized under:
Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change > Values‐Based Approach to Vulnerability and Adaptation
Transformation in the face of climate change requires new human‐environment relations as symbolized by a major river gone dry in Nicaragua. Affective processes whereby change can be debated using science, emotions and experiential ways of knowing opens new political pathways to change.
The need to mainstream adaptation to climate change into development planning and ongoing sectoral decision-making is increasingly recognised, and several bilateral and multilateral development ...agencies are starting to take an interest. Over the past years at least six development agencies have screened their project portfolios, generally with two goals in mind: (1) to ascertain the extent to which existing development projects already consider climate risks or address vulnerability to climate variability and change, and (2) to identify opportunities for incorporating climate change explicitly into future projects. As each portfolio screening was conducted independently, the broader lessons emerging from the screenings have not been systematically analysed. In this paper we assess the screening activities to date, focusing on both the results and the methods applied. Based on this assessment we identify opportunities for development agencies to expand their current focus on the links between climate and development. Most agencies already consider climate change as a real but uncertain threat to future development, but they have given less thought to how different development patterns might affect vulnerability to climate change. The screenings undertaken have shown the need to take a comprehensive approach to adaptation and its integration into development planning and sectoral decision-making, and a number of policy initiatives have been taken to promote such integration. We provide some initial guidance as to how portfolio screening can be carried out in a way that would allow agencies to assess systematically the relevance of climate change to their ongoing and planned development projects. PUBLICATION ABSTRACT
In this article, we argue that people's adjustments to multiple shocks and changes, such as conflict and drought, are intrinsically political processes that have uneven outcomes. Strengthening local ...adaptive capacity is a critical component of adapting to climate change. Based on fieldwork in two areas in Kenya, we investigate how people seek to access livelihood adjustment options and promote particular adaptation interests through forming social relations and political alliances to influence collective decision-making. First, we find that, in the face of drought and conflict, relations are formed among individuals, politicians, customary institutions, and government administration aimed at retaining or strengthening power bases in addition to securing material means of survival. Second, national economic and political structures and processes affect local adaptive capacity in fundamental ways, such as through the unequal allocation of resources across regions, development policy biased against pastoralism, and competition for elected political positions. Third, conflict is part and parcel of the adaptation process, not just an external factor inhibiting local adaptation strategies. Fourth, there are relative winners and losers of adaptation, but whether or not local adjustments to drought and conflict compound existing inequalities depends on power relations at multiple geographic scales that shape how conflicting interests are negotiated locally. Climate change adaptation policies are unlikely to be successful or minimize inequity unless the political dimensions of local adaptation are considered; however, existing power structures and conflicts of interests represent political obstacles to developing such policies.
•Adaptation is not a linear, nor static, process.•The politics of adaptation are key to understanding entrenchment, or shifts, in vulnerability.•Subjectivities and authority are both reinforced and ...contested through coping strategies.•The role of ‘illicit’ activities in adaptation processes is contradictory and unpredictable.
This article investigates the role of ‘illicit’ activities in shaping vulnerability dynamics and exemplifies the role of subjectivities and authority in the politics of adaptation. Through drawing on data from several areas in Kitui County in Kenya, the article shows how people are able to use illicit strategies very differently, with differential outcomes on their vulnerability. We suggest that this dynamic has important political dimensions in terms of how authority, legitimacy, subjectivity and social status are reproduced or challenged through the daily practice of how individuals and households within a village engage in strategies to manage shocks and change. We use the term ‘illicit’ here to emphasize that some activities carried out to cope with shocks and change in the study area, namely bush-meat hunting, home-brewing, charcoal production, prostitution, forest uses and theft, are actually subject to legal or social sanctions and repercussions because they are counter to statutory and/or customary law and moral codes. What is seen as socially acceptable locally (and by whom) however, and what sanctions can be expected, is malleable as a result of a dynamic interplay between statutory and customary law and social norms, subjectivity and environmental conditions, which do not always coincide. People may use this to their advantage differentially. Engaging in illicit activities can alter subjectivity and authority, as people are ascribed roles characterized as ‘immoral’ or ‘criminal’, which in turn may affect their social standing and authority in the community. Illicit strategies are, however, also in part an arena where people assume authority and control over their own circumstances and resist rules of what is socially acceptable or not. Longer-term implications of the illicit coping strategies identified in this article were found to be contradictory and unpredictable, multifaceted and complex, particularly in terms of social differentiation and vulnerability. Coping strategies that might make a person or household less vulnerable on one time scale, might make them more vulnerable on another, thereby illustrating that adaptation is not a linear nor static process.
In this paper, we explore the interactions between political, social and environmental changes and forest governance in Kenya, through a study of Mukogodo forest in Laikipia county. Drawing on ...findings from key informant and group interviews as well as analysis of policy documents, we argue that political reform processes – including devolution and changing land and forest policies – combined with “green militarisation” and socio-environmental changes have profound implications for the politics of forest governance in Mukogodo. The way policy reforms interact with wider political dynamics has important implications for the management of environmental change. We find that competing claims to authority both within and between communities are exacerbated by increasingly weaponised resource management regimes, electoral politics and a territorialisation of resource rights. Contestations and tensions between different social groups ensue as some gain secure access to forest resources while others do not. Claims to decision-making authority over resources or to socio-political positions in general are often made based on ethnicity, gender, age, clan, education levels or other dimensions of social differentiation. The way that groups and organisations portray others as mismanaging the forest – and themselves as solving the problem – also forms part of how authority claims are being made in forest governance. The result is a forest governance regime that exhibits less flexibility and cooperation between social groups living in and around the forest, thus undermining livestock mobility and other practices that are critical for the resilience of pastoral systems in a changing climate.
•The politics of forest governance are infused with contestations over authority.•Policy reforms and militarisation shift patterns of authority in forest governance.•Overlapping claims to authority exacerbate inter-group tensions.•Policy reforms produce particular types of subjectivities.•Forest governance in a changing climate requires flexibility and inclusiveness.
In this Personal View, we examine how the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and lived experiences of disability can deepen understanding of four key features of climate-resilient ...development: social justice and equity as normative goals; the ethical underpinnings of social choices; the inequitable relations that drive marginalisation; and the ways in which society navigates uncertainty through inclusive and contestatory politics. A disability lens not only helps to understand how marginalisation generates vulnerability; it also helps to elaborate the ethic of solidarity as underpinning social choices and steering development towards climate-resilient pathways. Social justice concerns non-discrimination and equitable participation in everyday informal arenas, as well as formal decision making processes. The resilience knowledges of disabled people help to rethink sustainable development by expounding human interdependence and everyday problem solving in the face of uncertainties. They also contribute to opening up climate change decision making and knowledge processes in ways crucial to engendering transformative change. Embracing human diversity by recognising dignity and capacity is required to counter othering and marginalisation, ensure human wellbeing and planetary health, and achieve socially just development. As such, solidarity is not just a normative goal, but also a means of building climate-resilient development.
In this article, we discuss how two interpretations of vulnerability in the climate change literature are manifestations of different discourses and framings of the climate change problem. The two ...differing interpretations, conceptualized here as 'outcome vulnerability' and 'contextual vulnerability', are linked respectively to a scientific framing and a human-security framing. Each framing prioritizes the production of different types of knowledge, and emphasizes different types of policy responses to climate change. Nevertheless, studies are seldom explicit about the interpretation that they use. We present a diagnostic tool for distinguishing the two interpretations of vulnerability and use this tool to illustrate the practical consequences that interpretations of vulnerability have for climate change policy and responses in Mozambique. We argue that because the two interpretations are rooted in different discourses and differ fundamentally in their conceptualization of the character and causes of vulnerability, they cannot be integrated into one common framework. Instead, it should be recognized that the two interpretations represent complementary approaches to the climate change issue. We point out that the human-security framing of climate change has been far less visible in formal, international scientific and policy debates, and addressing this imbalance would broaden the scope of adaptation policies.
Over the past decade, widespread concern has emerged over how environmental governance can be transformed to avoid impending catastrophes such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and livelihood ...insecurity. A variety of approaches have emerged, focusing on either politics, technological breakthrough, social movements, or macro-economic processes as the main drivers of change. In contrast, this paper presents theoretical insights about how systemic change in environmental governance can be triggered by critical and intellectually grounded social actors in specific contexts of environment and development. Conceptualising such actors as critical action intellectuals (CAI), we analyze how CAI emerge in specific socio-environmental contexts and contribute to systemic change in governance. CAI trigger transformative change by shifting policy discourse, generating alternative evidence, and challenging dominant policy assumptions, whilst aiming to empower marginalized groups. While CAI do not work in a vacuum, nor are the sole force in transformation, we nevertheless show that the praxis of CAI within fields of environmental governance has the potential to trigger transformation. We illustrate this through three cases of natural resource governance in Nepal, Nicaragua and Guatemala, and Kenya, where the authors themselves have engaged as CAI. We contribute to theorising the ‘how’ of transformation by showing the ways CAI praxis reshape fields of governance and catalyze transformation, distinct from, and at times complementary to, other dominant drivers such as social movements, macroeconomic processes or technological breakthroughs.
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