Sara de Wit - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Sara de Wit

BRILL eBooks, Sep 25, 2019

Global communications, Dec 1, 2020

Moving beyond existing approaches that largely deal with the biophysical consequences of climate ... more Moving beyond existing approaches that largely deal with the biophysical consequences of climate change realities in Africa, this book explores an alternative perspective that traces climate change as a travelling idea. It focuses on how globally constructed discourses on climate change find their way to the local level in the Bamenda Grassfields of Cameroon, thereby seeking to understand how these discursive practices lead to social transformations, and to new configurations of power. In the translation process from the ?global? to the ?local? level a continuous modification and appropriation of the idea of climate change takes place that finally leads to a concrete implementation of climate change related projects and sensitization campaigns. Hence, it is argued that in this increasingly interconnected and mediated world people in Africa (and elsewhere in the world) do not solely adapt to a changing climate, but also adapt to a changing discourse about the climate. Travelling between traditional rulers and their palaces, to the world of NGOs, journalists and ordinary farmers this study brings the reader on a captivating journey, that reveals how climate change engages in a variety of ways with different lifeworlds, revitalizes local cosmologies, gives birth to a new development paradigm, and moreover how it evokes apocalyptic anxieties and trajectories of blame at the grassroots level.

This paper supports the argument that social science research should focus on adaptation to clima... more This paper supports the argument that social science research should focus on adaptation to climate change as a social and political process, by analyzing the politics and interests of actors in climate change adaptation arenas, and by acknowledging the active role of those people who are expected to adapt. Most conventional climate research depoliticizes vulnerability and adaptation by removing dominant global economic and policy conditions from the discussion. Social science disciplines, if given appropriate weight in multidisciplinary projects, contribute important analyses by relying on established concepts from political science, human geography, and social anthropology. This paper explains relevant disciplinary concepts (climate change adaptation arena, governance, politics, perception, mental models, weather discourses, risk, blame, travelling ideas) and relates them to each other to facilitate the use of a common terminology and conceptual framework for research in a developmental context.

Routledge eBooks, May 20, 2018

Tapuya: Latin American Science, Technology And Society, 2021

ABSTRACT This article explores how international discourses on gender and climate change currentl... more ABSTRACT This article explores how international discourses on gender and climate change currently unfold for the Global South, and compares this with earlier gender discourses that traveled to Maasailand (Tanzania). By tracing the genealogy of older gender imaginaries, striking similarities emerge between the traveling discourses which position (African) women as vulnerable. This article argues against the feminization of climate change: the simplistic and historical reproduction of vulnerability along gender binaries. Gender and climate change discourses repeat historical productions of vulnerability and development that lead to a tendency to speak for rather than listen to the very women the discourses seek to support. I argue that more research is needed to understand what women do to live with climate change and its emergent discourses instead of focusing merely on what “climate change does to women.” Discourses on gender and climate change need critical insight from de- and post-colonial critiques of development and (eco)feminist scholarship that foregrounds gender’s intersectional, productive dimensions and agentive qualities. Essentializing categories like the “feminization of poverty” and women as “victims of culture” should serve as cautionary tales for climate change, which can be used by those in power to obscure more urgent problems, such as increasing land dispossession.

Author has made all reasonable efforts to trace all rights holders to any copyrighted material us... more Author has made all reasonable efforts to trace all rights holders to any copyrighted material used in this work. In cases where these efforts have not been successful the publisher welcomes communications from copyright holders, so that the appropriate acknowledgements can be made in future editions, and to settle other permission matters.

AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts, Dec 1, 2020

WIREs Climate Change, 2021

The past decade has seen increased anthropological attention to understandings of climate change ... more The past decade has seen increased anthropological attention to understandings of climate change not only as a biophysical phenomenon but also as a discourse that is traveling from international policy making platforms to the rest of the planet. The analysis of the uptake of climate change discourse falls under the emergent subfield of climate change reception studies. A few anthropological investigations identify themselves explicitly as reception studies; others only mention the term with little explanation. Our review discusses a fuller range of anthropological studies and ethnographies from related disciplines that treat climate change as a discursive reality, which is not independent from how it is intimated through close observations of the environment. The following themes emerged: language and expertise; place and vulnerability; modernity, morality, and temporality; alterity and refusal. The review suggests that the interaction of observation and reception is still not well ...

This dissertation is the fruit of a research project carried out within the context of the Priori... more This dissertation is the fruit of a research project carried out within the context of the Priority Program "Adaptation and Creativity in Africa: Technologies and Significations in the Production of Order and Disorder" (SPP1448). It has been a great privilege to participate in this extraordinary interdisciplinary framework, which has not only been intellectually inspiring but has also contributed to a sense of belonging. I wish to thank the German Research Council (DFG) for providing financial support, and the Co-Spokespersons Richard Rottenburg and Ulf Engel for creating and holding this framework together. This research has in turn formed a part of the jointly coordinated sub-project between the University of Cologne, Bayreuth and Bonn: "Translating the Adaptation to Climate Change Paradigm in Eastern Africa". My appreciation goes to the project-leaders Detlef Müller-Mahn and Martin Doevenspeck, and my supervisor Michael Bollig, for his support, knowledge and confidence in my work, and for giving me so much freedom. I owe much to my exchange with all the juniors and principal investigators, and to the support of my companions Michael Stasik, Florian Weisser, Jullia Willers and Eva Riedke of the SPP, who have made this journey a particularly enriching experience. I feel truly blessed to have had Dorothy Hodgson as my second supervisor, whose expertise, dedication, and critical eye have been an abundant source of inspiration. Due to her tremendously important work on the Maasai, I believe that this study stands on firmer ground. Other scholars who have, in the course of this research, provided me with insightful comments are Ben Orlove, Mike Hulme, and Terrence McCabe. My dear colleagues and friends from the University of Cologne-The "Marienburgers": Thekla Kelbert, Anne-Christina Achterberg-Boness, Christiane Naumann, Diego Menestrey and Elsemi Olwage-have been an anchor of joy in the past years in an otherwise lonely trajectory. I also wish to thank Monika Feinen for the cartography and Pax Amphlett for proofreading this whole manuscript. Without my friends and informants in Tanzania this research would not have been possible. Seth and Caroline's hospitality has been boundless. "Thank you for having accepted me into your family". My gratitude also goes to my research assistants Naini Mollel, Musa Kamaika and Saruni Shuaka Kaleya, and to Joyce Msigwa from the University of Dar es Salaam for all the audio translations and transcriptions. I am particularly indebted to Saruni for uncountable hours spent walking through the plains of Terrat with me, and to transcribing and translating policy workhops with such care and devotion, as well as for your kindness and eagerness to learn. I am grateful for our serendipitous encounter. The Maasai family of Petro Lesindi, Mama Eliya, Mama Nasinyari, Logolie, Sembeyan, Banji and all the children who allowed me to dwell in their boma deserve special words of praise. To Petro: thank you for providing me with a house and for allowing me to share in the intimate space of the lifeworlds of your family, achenaleng! I owe my deepest gratitude to all my informants and to the villagers of Terrat, who have shared their stories, hopes, dreams and anxieties with me. The support of Israel, the VEO of Terrat, was indispensable in gaining access to the field. My gratitude also goes to my dear friend Beny, who helped me to fix my 20-year old Contents Acknowledgements-i

npj Clean Water, 2021

Climate resilient development has become the new paradigm for sustainable development influencing... more Climate resilient development has become the new paradigm for sustainable development influencing theory and practice across all sectors globally-gaining particular momentum in the water sector, since water security is intimately connected to climate change. Climate resilience is increasingly recognised as being inherently political, yet efforts often do not sufficiently engage with context-specific socio-ecological, cultural and political processes, including structural inequalities underlying historically produced vulnerabilities. Depoliticised approaches have been shown to pose barriers to concerted and meaningful change. In this article, world-leading water specialists from academic and practitioner communities reflect on, and share examples of, the importance of keeping people and politics at the centre of work on climate resilient water security. We propose a roadmap to meaningfully engage with the complex politics of climate resilient water security. It is critical to re-politicise climate resilience to enable efforts towards sustainable development goal 6-clean water and sanitation for all.

This research forms part of the jointly coordinated project between the University of Cologne, th... more This research forms part of the jointly coordinated project between the University of Cologne, the University of Bayreuth and the University of Bonn: "Translating Adaptation to Climate Change in Eastern Africa". I wish to thank the DFG for providing financial support and the SPP 1448 Co-Spokespersons Richard Rottenburg and Ulf Engel for creating and holding this framework together. I also thank Michael Bollig, Mike Hulme and Ben Orlove for their valuable comments, and Florian Weisser for the fruitful exchange. Also the detailed and insightful comments of an anonymous reviewer are acknowledged.

There is one remarkable feature of the way in which the story of global warming is advancing, at ... more There is one remarkable feature of the way in which the story of global warming is advancing, at least as far as sub-Saharan Africa is concerned: we cease to treat it as a story. This thesis addresses this blind spot and follows a travelling story of adaptation to climate change from international platforms all the way to northern Tanzania where the Maasai pastoralists dwell. As such, it is demonstrated how this global discourse travels through systems of power, brings old frictions among different stakeholders to the fore and explores the varying lifeworlds that it entangles and brings to life along its way. Following this trajectory provides insight into how climate change, as a statistical description, becomes an agentive force and imaginative resource that is inexhaustible in meaning; a power that operates well beyond its atmospheric properties.

Tapuya: Latin American Science, Technology and Society, 2021

Global Communications, 2020

Climatic Change, 2021

As the epistemic hand in the UNFCCC’S political glove, the IPCC is charged with furnishing the gl... more As the epistemic hand in the UNFCCC’S political glove, the IPCC is charged with furnishing the global dialogues with ‘reliable knowledge’ on climate change. Much has been written about how this body of scientific information can be communicated more effectively to a diverse public, but considerably less so on the role communication might play in making the IPCC itself more receptive to alternative forms of contribution. Climate change communication remains centred on a unidirectional model that has helped climate science achieve greater public legibility, but so far not explored equivalent channels within institutional thinking for representing public and other non-scientific knowledges. Anticipating a new assessment report and major developments for the Paris Agreement, now is an opportunity to consider ambitious pathways to reciprocity in the IPCC’s communication strategy. Drawing on interdisciplinary insights from social science literatures, we argue that communication is not onl...

Environmental Change and African Societies, 2019

Humans influence the environment and climate, with the consequences now felt across the globe. Na... more Humans influence the environment and climate, with the consequences now felt across the globe. National or regional efforts to restrict or at least contain the damage are invariably insufficient: in principle, environmental and climate protection requires a global approach. Paradoxically, the way we perceive environmental and climate change and respond to the harm that they cause is closely linked to local or regional patterns of perception. It is these particularistic perceptions that often lead to different, and in many instances conflicting, reactions to preventive and curative environmental and climate protection measures. These local views are grounded not only in the different paths that socioeconomic development has taken in specific regions of the world, but also in varying cultural patterns. Think, for example, of the vastly different ways in which current problems are perceived, or of how policy styles and politicosocial environments differ. Also, the disturbance of the environment and climate causes relatively rapid social changes, in which the interpretation of symbols for the relationship between man and nature plays an important part. The history of climate and culture, patterns of perception of environmental and climate change, and an informed assessment of the future direction of environmental and climate policy in different parts of the world have to be taken into account in order to get to grips with the problem. From a variety of angles, such as the history of ideas, historiography, the study of civilisation, and the political sciences, the monographs and edited volumes in Climate and Culture will all deal with the following questions:-How do local and regional cultures perceive historical and contemporary changes in the environment and climate?-How did and do they adjust to these changes?-How do their various representatives and spokespeople introduce their respective views into the global debate and into emerging systems of international negotiation? The following titles are included in the series: