Anthropology and Climate Change

Susan A. Crate is an environmental and cognitive anthropologist and Professor Emeritus of George Mason University, USA.Mark Nuttall is Professor and Henry Marshall Tory Chair of Anthropology at the University of Alberta, Canada. He is also Adjunct Professor at Ilisimatusarfik/University of Greenland and the Greenland Climate Research Centre in Nuuk, and Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

"This third edition of Anthropology and Climate Change is an excellent assemblage of articles and case studies exploring the reorientations required for fully capturing the multiple and complexly intertwined challenges of climate change, the need to reconfigure through a process of world-making different ways (worlds) of envisioning how we relate to one another and to our environments, and finally, the problems and pitfalls that occur when global policy fails to recognize local capacities and vulnerabilities. Challenging the neoliberal logic that negates the possibility of other possible futures, essentially construing neoliberal capitalism as some ultimate stage of human evolution (Baschet 2003), the authors assert that anthropology thus must tap into the full array of resources, past, contemporary and imagined, for guides for creating alternative futures beyond the current relentless construction of risk. Framing the focus of the third edition with the subtitle "From Transformations to World-Making," Crate and Nuttall and the various authors contend that if climate change doesn't move us toward imagining other worlds (ways) than current neoliberal approaches, we never will, and the consequences will be catastrophic. The third edition of Anthropology and Climate Change moves that discussion significantly forward."Anthony Oliver-Smith, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, University of Florida

• Introduction: from transformations to worldmaking Susan A. Crate and Mark Nuttall Part 1: Reorientations 1. The arc of the Anthropocene: deep-time perspectives from environmental archaeology 2. Re-fielding climate change in cultural anthropology 3. A picaresque critique: the anthropology of disasters and displacement in the era of global warming and pandemics 4. Understanding Arctic melt: reflections on collaborative interdisciplinary research 5. ‘Knowing’ climate: engaging vernacular narratives of change Part 2: Worldmaking Practices 6. “Don’t look down:” green technologies, climate change, and mining 7. Getting it right: What needs to be done to ensure First Nations’ participation and benefit from large-scale renewable energy developments on Country? 8. Whither the winds of change? Worldmaking winds and seasonal disruptions in the northern Chilean Andes 9. The water obliges: climate change and worldmaking practices in Peru 10. Climate actions with a lagniappe: coastal restoration, flood risk reduction, sacred site protection, and Tribal communities' resilience 11. Climate change as colonial echo in the Canadian Arctic 12. On new ground: tracing human-muskox reconfigurations in Greenland 13. The disappearing free reindeer: unexpected consequences of climate change for Fennoscandian reindeer herding 14. Sakha and alaas: place attachment and cultural identity in a time of climate change 15. A reflexive approach to climate change engagement with Sherpas from Khumbu and Pharak in northeastern Nepal (Mount Everest Region) Part 3: Interventions 16. Why we need to pay attention to wealth and inequality in lowering carbon emissions 17. Decarbonization and making the energy future in the Welsh underlands 18. Representation and luck: reflections on climate and collaboration in Shishmaref, Alaska 19. Agricultural intensification in Northern Burkina Faso: smallholder adaptation to climate change 20. Anthropological contributions to IPCC assessment work 21. Negotiating science and policy in international climate assessments 22. From “lone ranger” to team player: the role of anthropology in training a new generation of climate adaptation professionals 23. Climate counter-hegemony: crafting an anthropological climate politics through student-faculty collaborations in the classroom and on the streets 24. Caiyugluku: pulling from within to meet the challenges in a rapidly changing Arctic 25. Culture and heritage in climate conversations: reflections on connection culture, heritage and climate change