Rudiak-Gould, P. 2011. Climate change and anthropology: The importance of reception studies. Anthropology Today 27(2):9-12. (original) (raw)

Climate change reception studies in anthropology

WIREs Climate Change, 2021

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 ...

Anthropology’s Contribution to the Study of Climate Change

Nature Climate Change, 2013

Understanding the challenge that climate change poses and crafting appropriate adaptation and mitigation mechanisms requires input from the breadth of the natural and social sciences. Anthropology's in-depth fieldwork methodology, long engagement in questions of society–environment interactions and broad, holistic view of society yields valuable insights into the science, impacts and policy of climate change. Yet the discipline's voice in climate change debates has remained a relatively marginal one until now. Here, we identify three key ways that anthropological research can enrich and deepen contemporary understandings of climate change.

Contribution of anthropology to the study of climate change.

Barnes, Jessica, Michael Dove, Myanna Lahsen, Andrew Mathews, Pamela McElwee, Roderick McIntosh, Frances Moore, Jessica O’Reilly, Ben Orlove, Rajindra Puri, Harvey Weiss and Karina Yager, in Nature Climate Change 3: 541-544. , 2013

"Understanding the challenge that climate change poses and crafting appropriate adaptation and mitigation mechanisms requires input from the breadth of the natural and social sciences. Anthropology’s in-depth fieldwork methodology, long engagement in questions of society–environment interactions and broad, holistic view of society yields valuable insights into the science, impacts and policy of climate change. Yet the discipline’s voice in climate change debates has remained a relatively marginal one until now. Here, we identify three key ways that anthropological research can enrich and deepen contemporary understandings of climate change."

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.”

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.

Anthropological perspectives and policy implications of climate change research

Climate Research, 2001

In attempting to bridge global analyses on climate change with locally identifiable processes of community response and perception on climate, one may ask how an anthropological focus on locality can be made relevant to current scientific methods that privilege © Inter-Research 2001 • www.int-res.com

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.