INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH

FRONTIERS
Anthropology and Future of Climate Change research

Prepared and Presented by,

Md. Tahmid Hasan
Department of Anthropology
University of Rajshahi
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.
Background
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.
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.
Why Climate Change should be approached Continued.

interdisciplinarily?

■ “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.
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.
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. Different Scales

■ 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.”
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).
What Anthropology has to offer in Climate Change Continued.

research?

■ “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 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
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
Thank you all.