Anthropology, Weather and Climate Change (original) (raw)
Related papers
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."
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.
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.”
From May 27th to 29th 2016, the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (RAI) hosted a large international conference on the theme of weather, environment and climate change at the British Museum in London. The topic is of course timely in the extreme, with issues of climate change and questions of how to deal most appropriately with it looming large in public debate, in policy-making, and in research funding arenas such as the EU's Horizon 2020 framework programme. With nearly 600 attendees and substantial press coverage, this was by all standards a high-profile academic convention. As stated in the conference booklet, the meeting was to appeal to an anthropological audience in the four-field definition of the discipline, i.e. social/cultural anthropology, biological anthropology, linguistics and, last but not least, archaeology. The latter discipline was, however, only poorly represented outside the one session organized by usbut more on this below.
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 ...
Changing the Atmosphere. Anthropology and Climate Change
2015
Climate change is a present reality that alters our physical environment and impacts human cultures around the globe. Climate change is not a crisis of the distant future or a myth. It affects us now, at home and abroad. Climate change intensifies underlying problemspoverty and economic disparities, food and water security, and armed conflict-heightening these issues to the point of widespread crisis. Anthropologists predict climate change will accelerate migration, destabilize communities and nations, and exacerbate the spread of infectious diseases. We can expect to see widespread impacts on communities as they face dislocation and pressure to migrate. Climate change will challenge peoples' cultures and beliefs as their sense of safety and daily habits are undermined by an increasingly unpredictable relationship with their environment. People in both developed and developing countries will feel the pressures. Those who have directly depended on natural resources for centuriesin high latitude/altitude areas, low-lying island nations, coastal environments, and other biomes-will have their lives most disrupted.
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.