Anthropology and Climate Change Students Handbook (original) (raw)
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."
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.
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 in Anthropological Perspective
Adaptation drives evolution and climate change poses significant challenges for unadaptable species. Despite this well-known fact, climate change mitigation and adaptation policies are explicitly pointed toward the same practices shown to cause climate instability. This research emerges at the intersection of studies in religion, spirits, and states in Southeast Asia and more recent investigations into land use and climate change mitigation and adaptation policies. My findings show 2 important things. First, ineffective climate change mitigation and adaptation policies are grounded in particular visions of progress and are supported by a deep belief in human exceptionalism. Second, these ideas can be traced to origin stories from the planet's major civilizations, which make them both widespread and cultural. Culture is a human creation. This observation can pave the way for new thinking about what it means to be civilized in the world and ignite solutions for real human adaptation to the coming crisis. We have irrefutable evidence that climate instability is a product of human development and population growth. Additionally, research shows that climate change mitigation and adaptation policies entail carbon intensive inputs and infrastructures (Timilsina and Mevel, 2013; Mulvaney 2014; Zhang and Xu 2015). This paper explores current climate change mitigation and adaptation policies (CCMA), which propose no alterations to our current production-driven, consumption-oriented economy and encourage business to continue as usual. Such policies are difficult to explain and are embedded in complex systems of markets, finance, governance, and profits. Potentially dangerous alterations to the earth's climate drive the simple research question that grounds this article. How can 'business-as-usual' economic policies continue unchanged? Greed is often put forward as a logical explanation. Greed is surely part of it, and addiction, but it seems a shallow explanation. Others suggest the insatiable desire at the root of all human nature. This paper will not address the fallacy of human nature as a concept, but will attempt to disrupt human nature as an explanation. Climate policy today seems to be burdened by economic and social policies that measure development progress, from least-developed to most-developed nations. In this short think piece, I begin excavating these policies and find their antecedents in deeply held and widely shared beliefs that have little to do with science or contemporary understandings of ecosystems and economics. I argue that the seemingly irrational decision to continue economic growth in the face of its radical consequences is situated in the origin stories of the planet's major civilizations. The exceptional status of the human animal and its special connection to divine bodies is at the core of these beliefs. Also fundamental to these origin stories are developing technologies of agriculture, healing, transportation, warfare, and then bringing these civilizing elements to all people of the planet through territorial conquest. The unquestioned benefits of these practices remain with us and are still practiced and honored today. When viewed through the lens of climate change, the rational for continuing the pursuit of population growth, agricultural
American Journal of Human Biology, 2017
Anthropologists, human biologists, and researchers in related fields have been investigating the human-environment interaction and its effects on health for decades. While there have been numerous studies from the medical-and health-sectors pointing to the connection between climate change and health needs, as well as studies advocating for the incorporation of appropriate curricula addressing these needs in medical schools and health-professional programs, this connection is not being systematically taught to our future healthcare professionals. Here, we first briefly summarize research highlighting the interaction between environment and health; we follow this with discussion about why this interaction is important for current and future medical professionals to understand, particularly in light of the current issues of climate change. We specifically address how anthropologists and human biologists have contributed to the literature on marginal environments and climate change, and how anthropological research may be incorporated in health-oriented and medical classrooms to aid in this discussion. Through interdisciplinary collaboration between anthropologists, human biologists, medical-health professionals, and researchers in other fields, we can learn from our past and play a part in piecing together our future health care issues and needs.