Antinomies of Ecology and Scales of Tribal Development (original) (raw)

Climate Change: Expanding Anthropological Possibilities

Annual Review of Anthropology, 2020

Climate anthropology has broadened over the past decade from predominately locally focused studies on climate impacts to encompass new approaches to climate science, mitigation, sustainability transformations, risks, and resilience. We examine how theoretical positionings, including from actor-network theory, new materialisms, ontologies, and cosmopolitics, have helped expand anthropological climate research, particularly in three key interrelated areas. First, we investigate ethnographic approaches to climate science knowledge production, particularly around epistemic authority, visioning of futures, and engagements with the material world. Second, we consider climate adaptation studies that critically examine discourses and activities surrounding concepts of vulnerability, subjectivities, and resilience. Third, we analyze climate mitigation, including energy transitions, technological optimism, market-based solutions, and other ways of living in a carbon-constrained world. We conclude that anthropological approaches provide novel perspectives, made possible through engagements with our uniquely situated research partners, as well as opportunities for opening up diverse solutions and possible transformative futures. 13 ,. • • �-Review in Advance first posted on April 14, 2020. (Changes may still occur before final publication.

Indigenous Climate Change Studies: Indigenizing Futures, Decolonizing the Anthropocene

Indigenous and allied scholars, knowledge keepers, scientists, learners, change-makers, and leaders are creating a field to support Indigenous peoples’ capacities to address anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change. Indigenous studies often reflect the memories and knowledges that arise from Indigenous peoples’ living heritages as societies with stories, lessons, and long histories of having to be well-organized to adapt to seasonal and inter-annual environmental changes. At the same time, our societies have been heavily disrupted by colonialism, capitalism, and industrialization. As a Potawatomi scholar-activist working on issues Indigenous people face with the U.S. settler state, I perceive at least three key themes reflected across the field that suggest distinct approaches to inquiries into climate change: 1. Anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change is an intensification of environmental change imposed on Indigenous peoples by colonialism. 2. Renewing Indigenous knowledges, such as traditional ecological knowledge, can bring together Indigenous communities to strengthen their own self-determined planning for climate change. 3. Indigenous peoples often imagine climate change futures from their perspectives (a) as societies with deep collective histories of having to be well-organized to adapt environmental change and (b) as societies who must reckon with the disruptions of historic and ongoing practices of colonialism, capitalism, and industrialization. In engaging these themes, I will claim, at the end, that Indigenous studies offer critical, decolonizing approaches to how to address climate change. The approaches arise from how our ways of imagining the future guide our present actions. The article is forthcoming in English Language Notes.

Indigenous Sustainability and Resilience to Climate Extremes Traditional Knowledge and the Systems of Survival

2019

The United States is a demographically and regionally diverse nation seeking to achieve equity among its constituent members. Within this pluralistic democracy, many Indigenous Nations continue to live upon the lands that they have occupied since "time immemorial." Tribal governments are not just "stakeholders" in public policy debates over climate change. As sovereign governments, they hold political rights to land, water and natural resources. As Indigenous peoples, they also have strong cultural connections to their ancestral lands and environments. Many Indigenous peoples continue to possess traditional norms of sustainability that have enabled their resilience and survival for generations. This Essay argues that there is a vital role for Indigenous sustainability within the frameworks that drive climate policy and sustainable development and explores the legal, political, and moral arguments for the inclusion of tribal governments within the decision-making structures of the United States and its global partners.

Climate and Culture: Anthropology in the Era of Contemporary Climate Change

Annual Review of Anthropology

This review provides an overview of foundational climate and culture studies in anthropology; it then tracks developments in this area to date to include anthropological engagements with contemporary global climate change. Although early climate and culture studies were mainly founded in archaeology and environmental anthropology, with the advent of climate change, anthropology's roles have expanded to engage local to global contexts. Considering both the unprecedented urgency and the new level of reflexivity that climate change ushers in, anthropologists need to adopt cross-scale, multistakeholder, and interdisciplinary approaches in research and practice. I argue for one mode that anthropologists should pursue—the development of critical collaborative, multisited ethnography, which I term “climate ethnography.”

Indigenous Peoples and Climate Change: Emerging Research on Traditional Knowledge and Livelihoods

2019

Special thanks to Uma Rani (ILO) for reflecting on the studies and contributing towards the concluding remarks, and also to Professor Dawn Chatty for facilitating the engagement between the ILO and the University of Oxford. The publication further benefited from the English language editing by Richard Cook and his team. Special thanks also to Professor Heather Viles for her support for the publication. Finally, the publication would not have been possible without the encouragement of Shauna Olney

The Role of Anthropology in Anthropogenic Climate Change

This paper will discuss in detail the specific roles that anthropology is playing in unique case studies from around the world. It will highlight the need for awareness while also advocating a greater role for anthropology; in the battle against climate change. Various case studies from three different regions: the Arctic, high altitude mountains and tropical sea-level islands will be showcased. This will show not only the diverse applications for anthropology, but the variety of effects on those facing the brunt of climate change. Anthropology has the ability to successfully apply local strategies in a working partnership with indigenous groups. It is unique in the fact that an anthropologist is the pivot point between the local and global, and can draw upon a wealth of knowledge from both sides to find unique solutions. This paper will also discuss the holistic and methodological roles that anthropology has and needs to play, while debating the terminology applied to indigenous groups. Human agency, advocacy, resilience, vulnerability and adaptation are all strong themes that will be discussed within various formats. Climate change is one of the greatest threats facing humanity in current times, and anthropology has a duty to be at the forefront in order to find effective solutions.

Anthropological Perspectives on Natural Resources Management, Climate Change and Global Warming: From Quandary to Actions

Crossing the Border: International Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, 2014

Anthropology brings its core theoretical tenet that culture frames the way people perceive, understand, experience, and respond to key elements of the worlds which they live in. This framing is grounded in systems of meanings and relationships that mediate human engagements with natural phenomena and processes including climate change. Anthropology’s potential contributions to natural resources, climate and global warming researches are the description and analysis of the mediating layers of cultural meanings, norms and social practices, which cannot be easily incarcerate by methods of other disciplines. There are vital key contributions that anthropology can bring to understandings of climate change. The foremost is awareness to the cultural values and political relations that shape the production and interpretation of climate change knowledge and shape the basis of responses to ongoing environmental changes as ecological colonialism. Anthropological knowledge is holistic –referrin...