American Anthropological Association (AAA) published a paper on climate change to give anthropologists and anthropology a guideline on how they should or can approach climate change where there strengths can be used best.
This presentation is based on the sixth chapter of that publication which was titled "Interdisciplinary Research Frontiers".
2. Key concepts
■ Culture: Culture is embedded in social representations, shared assumptions, and
understandings about the social and physical world.
■ Interdisciplinary (research) activities: The activities in which anthropologists
participate as members of teams or groups along with professionals of other
disciplines and professions.
■ Research Frontiers: Research scopes and opportunities
■ Local knowledge: Non-institutional knowledge of a locality which is indigenous in
nature.
4. Background
Climate was and is always a subject of change. But the
rate at which it is changing in recent decades is
unprecedented.
The term ‘Climate change’ was proposed in 1970s to
acknowledge the anthropogenic causes behind this
phenomena. Before that it was called in various names
including ‘global warming’, ‘climatic change’ etc.
In 1988 WMO and UNEP created IPCC whose sole
purpose was to provide an ‘objective and scientific’ view
of climate change.
On ‘Earth Summit’ in 1992 UNFCCC was created as
climate change was identified as ‘a global problem’.
After that various global attempts, e.g. Kyoto Protocol
(1997), Copenhagen Agreement (2009), Cancun
Agreement (2010) and lastly Paris Agreement (2016),
was taken to address the issue.
5. Why Climate Change should be approached
interdisciplinarily?
Climate change is a problem which affect individual,
local, regional, national and global simultaneously.
As different communities, regions, nations have different
social and historical context, one single approach can not
grasp these contexts.
Climate change has both technical (natural science) and
non-technical (social science, humanities) aspects.
Earlier systems theory assumed that natural systems
could be modeled with a few key variables and would
return to equilibrium after being disturbed. Newer system
thinking attitude do not support such argument rather
they introduced concepts like non-linearity, dynamic etc.
to explain such things.
6. ■ “The concept of drought itself is social and cultural, since it is influenced by specific
forms of resource management and governance” (Wilhite and Pulwarty 2005).
■ “Anthropologists also show that discussions of climatic and other environmental
changes are not merely about natural phenomena, but also about social, political,
moral and religious systems”.
■ Medical anthropology understood that human wellbeing can not be understood only
through scientific framework rather it needs a broader understanding of social and
cultural context.
Why Climate Change should be approached
interdisciplinarily?
Continued.
7. What Anthropology is doing?
■ Anthropologists collaborate with scientists from
various disciplines, e.g. natural and social
science, humanities.
■ Much anthropological research is carried out on
scales that attend to the local, whether
centering on local processes or locating them in
relation to wider social and historical contexts.”
(p.61)
■ Anthropologists are taking part in research
programs like Dynamics of Coupled Natural-
Human Systems, Arctic Systems Science etc.
which are supported by National Science
Foundation.
■ They are also working as mentors in a jointly
funded program of NSF and NASA, DISCCRS,
where some of them are working as scholars.
■ Anthropologists are working hand in hand with
researchers from other disciplines in National
Hurricane Center and in National Climate
Assessment Program.
■ They are also working in various collaborative
research attempts under universities and NGOs
based worldwide.
8. How Anthropology should approach Climate Change?
■ Culture: is intertwined with the values
through which a people perceive and
interpret the past, present, and possible
future effects of climate change and
variability, and direct their responses.
■ Context: Social and historical context.
■ Holism: Holism views systems as entities
with interacting parts and the process of
interaction among those parts.
■ Scale: Scale means the interaction of
environment with individual, community,
regional, national, global level
■ “Local observations must be understood
through the local cultural and institutional
context.”
Different Scales
9. What Anthropology has to offer in Climate Change
research?
■ “With its broad basis in the historic and contemporary
diversity of culture, values, and beliefs, anthropology is
central to interdisciplinary efforts to reduce vulnerability
around the world” (Roncoli et al. 2002; Crate and
Nuttall 2009; Barnes et al. 2013; cited in Fiske et al.
2014)
■ “[A]nthropology reinforces the integration of science
and politics, to show how climate change impacts
cannot be separated from the social, political and
economic conditions in which communities are
embedded” (Bravo, 2009; cited in Fiske et al. 2014).
■ One of the most important contribution of Anthropology
in climate change research is that they critically
analyzed “how narrative frames information to sustain
public dialogue about climate change (Broad and
Orlove 2007, Galvin 2013, Orlove et al. 2014; cited in
Fiske et al. 2014).
10. ■ “Since global climate change has strikingly different effects from one locale to the next,
anthropologists involved in interdisciplinary endeavors can link the perceptions and
understandings of local and expert groups.”
■ “Anthropological investigations could work as a type of “ground-truthing” for global and
regional models, and point to the importance of down-scaling these models.”
■ Anthropology has brought the cultural difference between western and non-western cultures
into light which is crucial for climate change research.
■ “Anthropology is unique among the social sciences in its stress on extensive and
longitudinal fieldwork, its use of multiple methods and its close attention to the everyday
lives of local people” (Agar 2004; Hastrup 2013).
■ Anthropology can promote More human-inclusive approaches to understand change in
climate. For example, Hastrup and his colleagues in Waterworlds project.
What Anthropology has to offer in Climate
Change research?
Continued.
11. What Anthropologists should do?
■ As collaborators (i.e. working in groups with researchers
from various disciplines)
■ As ethnographers
■ Anthropologists should promote in-depth and
longitudinal methods rather than rapid ones.
■ Anthropologists should act as advocates of community
perceptions’ and local scientific knowledge.
■ Anthropologists can integrate human and natural
systems with an understanding of the history
of society-environment interactions to produce a broad
holistic view of climate change
12. Research Frontiers
■ Frontier-1: Models
■ Frontier-2: Resilience
■ Frontier-3: Adaptation Discourses
■ Frontier-4: Habitability
■ Frontier-5: The cultural Politics of Decarbonization
■ Frontier-6: Alternative Consumption Patterns
