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Asking the right qu...
Asking the right questions in adaptation research and practice : Seeing beyond climate impacts in rural Nepal
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- Ensor, Jonathan Edward (author)
- Stockholm Environment Institute, Department of Environment and Geography, University of York
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- Wennström, Patrick (author)
- Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences,Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet,Institutionen för stad och land,Department of Urban and Rural Development,Department of Urban and Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
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- Anil, Bhatterai (author)
- Department of Geography, University of Toronto
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- Nightingale, Andrea (author)
- Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences,Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet,Institutionen för stad och land,Department of Urban and Rural Development,Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU),Department of Urban and Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
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- Eriksen, Siri (author)
- International Environment and Development Studies, Norwegian University of Life Sciences
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- Sillmann, Jana (author)
- CICERO Center for International Climate Research
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(creator_code:org_t)
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- Elsevier BV, 2019
- 2019
- English.
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In: Environmental Science and Policy. - : Elsevier BV. - 1462-9011 .- 1873-6416. ; 94, s. 227-236
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Abstract
Subject headings
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- Adaptation research and practice too often overlooks the wider social context within which climate change is experienced. Mainstream approaches frame adaptation problems in terms of the consequences that flow from biophysical impacts and as a result, we argue, ask the wrong questions. A complementary approach gaining ground in the field, foregrounding the social, economic and political context, reveals differentiation in adaptation need, and how climate impacts interconnect with wider processes of change. In this paper, we illustrate how this kind of approach frames a different set of questions about adaptation using the case of Nepal. Drawing on fieldwork and a review of literature, we contrast the questions that emerge from adaptation research and practice that take climate risk as a starting point with the questions that emerge from examination of contemporary rural livelihoods. We find that while adaptation efforts are often centred around securing agricultural production and are predicated on climate risk management, rural livelihoods are caught in a wider process of transformation. The numbers of people involved in farming are declining, and households are experiencing the effects of rising education, abandonment of rural land, increasing wages, burgeoning mechanisation, and high levels of migration into the global labour market. We find the epistemological framing of adaptation too narrow to account for these changes, as it understands the experiences of rural communities through the lens of climate risk. We propose that rather than seeking to integrate local understandings into a fixed, impacts-orientated epistemology, it is necessary to premise adaptation on an epistemology capable of exploring how change occurs. Asking the right questions thus means opening up adaptation by asking: ‘what are the most significant changes taking place in people's lives?’, along with the more standard: ‘what are the impacts of climate change?’ Viewing adaptation as occurring between and within these two perspectives has the potential to reveal new vulnerabilities and opportunities for adaptation practice to act upon.
Subject headings
- SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP -- Annan samhällsvetenskap -- Tvärvetenskapliga studier inom samhällsvetenskap (hsv//swe)
- SOCIAL SCIENCES -- Other Social Sciences -- Social Sciences Interdisciplinary (hsv//eng)
- NATURVETENSKAP -- Geovetenskap och miljövetenskap -- Klimatforskning (hsv//swe)
- NATURAL SCIENCES -- Earth and Related Environmental Sciences -- Climate Research (hsv//eng)
- SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP -- Social och ekonomisk geografi -- Kulturgeografi (hsv//swe)
- SOCIAL SCIENCES -- Social and Economic Geography -- Human Geography (hsv//eng)
Keyword
- Adaptation
- Climate change
- Nepal
- South Asia
- Rural transformation
- Rural development
Publication and Content Type
- ref (subject category)
- art (subject category)
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